www.debito.org
JAPAN
TIMES COMMUNITY PAGE
THE ZEIT GIST COLUMN
(Update: page down to Feb 8, 2004 response to
this
article from the NRIPS)
FORENSIC SCIENCE
FICTION
Bad science and racism underpin police policy
By
DEBITO ARUDOU
January 13, 2004
Courtesy
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fl20040113zg.htm
We periodically hear from nationalists about Japan's distinctiveness --
how "Japaneseness"
is a matter of "race" and
"blood," not citizenship or culture.
This is usually disregarded
as mere unscientific sentiment from fringe elements.
But not, it
seems, by the National Police Agency. One of its branches, the
National
Research Institute of Police Science (NRIPS),
in 2001 proposed a policy
to create an "index" ("shihyou")
of
"foreignness" in its forensic crime science.
An
attempt to monitor and foil allegedly rampant foreign crime, NRIPS claims it
can
test minute samples of blood and biota from crime scenes to determine
whether the
suspect is "foreign" or not.
How? Because,
the NRIPS proposal expressly states, Japanese DNA is biologically
"different'
than that of "foreigners." Never mind that
Japan's citizenry has historical
traces of Korean, Chinese, Ainu, Ryukyuan,
and South American etc. in it, not including
the children of 40,000
international marriages per annum and 300,000 naturalized
citizens since
1968.
Thus the very concept is faulty: Yes, it may say something
about the "racial
background" of a suspect. But it cannot
incontrovertibly determine if somebody
is Japanese. Nevertheless, this
policy was approved, and allocated 175 million yen
yen ($1.6 million) for
"research purposes" and equipment for the period
spanning
2002-2006.
Normally, snake-oil science like this should amount to
no more than snickers for
putting another one over on the taxpayer. But this
"foreignness index"
is not a harmless white elephant. It may
misconstrue data, at the expense of Japan's
international minorities. These
"false positives" (i.e. results indicating
that racially-diverse
Japanese suspects are "foreign") could erroneously
inflate the
"foreign crime rate," further fueling Japan's current
scapegoating
of non-Japanese as criminals.
But don't take my word
for it. This comes from the horse's mouth (see original Japanese
text at http://
www.nrips.go.jp/evaluation/H13/link10.html,
or else click here for a scanned printout
version
if the NPA has removed the text from their site. Translations by
the author.):
The NRIPS writes:
----------------------------------------
"In (Japan), with the advent of . . .
internationalization,
there has been a rapid rise in heinous crimes
connected to foreigners coming to
Japan."
----------------------------------------
RIGHT from the get-go are the canards and assumptions. Why are
"internationalization"
and "heinous crimes" so
inexorably linked by our bureaucrats in blue? Is
an assumption so easily
made that more foreigners means a rise in crime?
Of course,
logically speaking, more people means more crime -- as there are crooks
in
any crowd. However, crime rates have risen not just for foreigners, but for
Japanese
too.
When you factor in that there are more foreigners in
Japan nowadays (numbers are
rising every year, while the Japanese population
has been static), the rises have
different implications.
Still,
has foreign crime been "rapidly" increasing? Hardly. In many
crime
categories, rates are significantly lower than the Japanese. Even for
crimes classified
as "heinous," such as mugging (down 5.4 percent
in the first six months
of 2003) and breaking-and-entering (likewise down
24.1 percent), it is dropping.
So why focus on the foreigners?
Because fear loosens public purse strings and justifies
budgetary outlay. It
also gives the NPA an excuse for their unprecedentedly low clearance
rate
(around 20 percent) of crimes, by shifting the blame to hordes of
unpredictable
foreign culprits.
Something too easily forgotten,
when vilifying internationalization, is that many
people want foreigners
here. Even the government. For example, why are there so many
Nikkei
Brazilians and Peruvians in Japan? (They are now the second-biggest
foreign
minority).
Because government policy in the 1990's brought
them here -- as cheap labor for major
factories like Toyota and Yamaha.
Also, studies by both the U.N. and the Prime Minister's office in
2000 have stressed
the need for more immigration to keep Japan's welfare
systems afloat in the world's
fastest-aging society.
It is not
merely counterproductive for the National Police Agency to allege and
stress
only the negative aspects of internationalization; it is an
inaccurate and prejudiced
portrayal of social trends.
The NRIPS
continues:
----------------------------------------
"With a criminal environment like this, the
development
of an index giving us a lead on whether or not a crime has been
committed by a foreigner
or not is being demanded."
----------------------------------------
BUT
who, pray tell, is "demanding" this? What people are
"demanding"
is crime prevention. Not foreigner prevention.
"Anti-crime" policy pushes are fine, even arguably
necessary in present-day
Japan. "Anti-foreign" crime pushes alone
are not. They miss the target.
It is time the NPA and its budgeteers realize
that the problem is not so much due
to an influx of outsiders, but to years
of economic funk contributing to social insecurity
and a steady breakdown in
social order.
Why else is Japanese crime rising? Are foreigners to
blame for that too?
Reality check: The "people" actually
demanding this index are the Tokyo
governor, the NPA, and the Immigration
Bureau, which issued a joint statement in
2003 priming the public for
foreign crackdowns.
Back to the NRIPS:
----------------------------------------
"Foreigners have a wide variety of characteristic
proteins
that are different than Japanese. . . . We will develop an index
which reveals, even
in minute traces of organic material, special
characteristics of foreigners, in order
to make heads or tails of things in
ways we couldn't before."
----------------------------------------
FIRST
of all, DNA testing is already available in Japan, so even if the claims
of
Japanese genetic uniqueness were scientifically valid, it would not
clearly justify
more taxes for overlapping programs.
But they are
not valid. Japan's history of immigration and outflow during its
Imperial
days (between China, Korea, Taiwan, The Philippines, Indochina, the
East Indies,
Micronesia, etc.), plus postwar migration and marriage, have
created more mixed backgrounds
than the Census Bureau (which doesn't measure
"ethnicity" in Japan) would
care to acknowledge.
Thus the
police, by assuming that Japanese citizenship is a matter
of race, ignore
worldwide DNA tracking and human genome work demonstrating
that no country is genetically
"pure."
Finally, the
NRIPS says the policy, quote,
----------------------------------------
"will contribute to making the investigation and
clearance
of crimes committed by foreigners easier and shorter, and be
useful in securing peaceful
and safe livelihoods for Japanese
citizens."
----------------------------------------
No it
won't.
At best, this "foreignness index" will give
incorrect results based upon
false presumptions about the Japanese gene
pool.
At worst, it may wrongly attribute unsolved crimes to
"foreigners" and
raise the alleged "foreign crime
rate."
This will cause even more tax outlay for similarly
bogus schemes, and further undermine
the rights and standing of the
international community in Japan.
It's time for people to decry
this flawed "foreignness index" for what
it is -- racism -- since
it uses race as an analytical paradigm based on faulty concepts
and
fallacious attributions. Stop it before it causes further social damage in
the
name of "science."
///////////////////////////////////////////
MAIN ARTICLE
ENDS
SIDEBAR
///////////////////////////////////////////
SAVING "OUR" COUNTRY FROM "THEM"
The NRIPS policy goal:
----------------------------------------
"In our country ("wagakuni"), crimes by
foreigners
coming to Japan are rising in recent years. This policy aims to
swiftly clear heinous
crimes which foreigners are thought to have had a hand
in.
"Because it will greatly contribute to securing public
safety as well as safety
in the livelihoods of Japanese citizens
("kokumin"), development of this
research will come under the
'Restoration of Livelihoods Program' ("seikatsu
ishin puroguramu")
in the 'Seven Reforms Program' ("nanatsu no kaikaku
puroguramu"),
raised within our 'Basic Aims' ("kihon houshin"). It
will fall
under the goal of 'securing public peace and safety for Japanese
citizens
("kokumin"), and securing a society where people can be
make a living ("anshin
shite kuraseru shakai")."
----------------------------------------
COMMENT: What's surprising about this vehemently
"gaijin-bashing"
passage is that it was written not by some
rightwing extremists, but by the police.
Leaving aside the canard
that foreign crime is rising, it refers to "our country"
(doesn't
it belong to the foreign residents and taxpayers too?);
"kokumin"
(don't foreigners also deserve police protection from
crime?) and suggests broadly
that foreigners are harming Japan by
undermining security and the means for citizens
to make a living.
Also interesting is the choice of words for the "Seikatsu
Ishin" Program.
This is the same "ishin" used for the Meiji
Restoration ("Meiji Ishin").
"Restore" Japan
to its former (foreigner-free?) glory days? That's quite
an ambitious policy
for some cops holed up in a think
tank.
///////////////////////////////////////////
SIDEBAR
ENDS
The Japan Times: Jan. 13, 2004
(C) All rights reserved
MORE INFORMATION ON THIS ISSUE AT
http://www.debito.org/
NPAracialprofiling.html
Hi all again. Just heard that the National Research
Institute of Police Science
(NRIPS, <http://www.nrips.go.jp/>)
has
responded to my Japan Timesarticle of
January 13, 2004 (see <http://www.debito.org/
japantimes011304.html>)
exposing their policies for DNA racial
profiling.
Here you go. Quick comment follows.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Forensic tools no cause for
bias
Japan Times, Sunday, February 8, 2004
Courtesy http://www.japantimes.co.jp/
ric.htm
My colleagues and I would like to comment on the Jan.
13 article "Forensic science
fiction," which criticizes what
writer Debito Arudou says is our proposed policy
to create "an index of
foreignness" in forensic science. We believe the
writer incorrectly
assumes that our efforts are aimed at "gaijin-bashing"
or
"loosening public purse strings" for an overlapping program by
instilling
fear of foreigners.
With the globalization and
diversification of crimes, a study to swiftly narrow down
possible
identities of unidentified victims and/or offenders is a very
important
method in criminal investigations. Besides screening persons
connected with the crime
by conventional methods, we are aiming to develop
new analytical tools using human
biological specimens.
Even if DNA
typing of an unidentified victim or offender has been performed using
a
bloodstain at the crime scene, it will remain impossible to promptly
determine
the DNA type without candidates to check it against. So, if it is
possible to estimate
the geographic area where an unidentified victim or
offender was born, an identity
will be narrowed down; as a result, a more
rapid solution of the case can be expected.
This study is not about carrying
out racial discrimination.
T. TSUDA
National Research Institute
of Police
Science
Tokyo
////////////////////////////////////////////////////<
BR>
LETTER ENDS
COMMENT: The English-language press in Japan
is small (no offense, Japan Times),
with negligible effect on domestic
affairs. So you know you've struck a nerve when
a domestic organization
beholden to few, such as the Japanese Police Agency, is concerned
enough
about its image to bother to translate, read, and publicly respond to an
article
in the English press.
Clearly an embarrassment. They never
expected the gaijin to be able to read and critique
their policy pages, I
guess. Good morning.
Now will they ever learn? The NRIPS still
clings to the belief above that DNA is
determined by birthplace ("to
estimate the geographic area where an unidentified
victim or offender was
born"). They need another wake-up call about just how
genetically
diverse Japan actually is. Clearly my article did not serve.
Arudou
Debito
Sapporo
February 10, 2004
ENDS
