Why has no one been found guilty of the crimes?

This year, three prefectural police organizations admitted they had misappropriated funds intended for criminal investigations and taken in huge amounts under the table. The authorities said they had disciplined the police officers responsible, who had paid back the money at the year's end.

The tricks the Hokkaido police used to raise secret slush funds included misusing the system of paying informants who were cooperating in criminal investigations. The Hokkaido police amassed 1.1 billion yen by fabricating receipts and pretending to have paid people who had supposedly tipped them off about crimes. The police took the names of ``informants'' from a telephone book and stashed the cash.

In one case, the Board of Audit found that Hokkaido police had forged receipts issued by fictitious restaurants. The board also discovered fabricated help-wanted ads supposedly run by the restaurants. Out of the roughly 10,000 police officers in Hokkaido, one in four received some kind of punitive action.

Meanwhile, the Fukuoka's prefectural police misappropriated a portion of the funds budgeted for criminal investigations, with some sections faking payments to police informants. The slush funds created in this manner reached 170 million yen.

And the Shizuoka prefectural police often used tricks such as fabricating business trips, thus amassing 13 million yen in hidden funds.

The Fukuoka and Shizuoka prefectural police continued raising secret funds in these ways until fiscal 2000, while Hokkaido police did so until fiscal 2003. All these police organizations at first denied their misdeeds but were later forced to admit wrongdoing when civic organizations began inquiries into the irregularities and a few officers blew the whistle.

The National Police Agency said other prefectural police organizations have not committed such misappropriations. But who really believes that?

Look at these figures: The three prefectural police organizations cited above get their funding from the National Police Agency's budget for wide-area criminal investigations. Such agency monies amounted to around 8 billion yen every year up to and including fiscal 2000. In fiscal 2001, the budget was drastically cut and fell to half, or 3.9 billion yen, in fiscal 2003.

It appears that prefectural police organizations throughout the nation, worried that their misdeeds might be brought to light by advocacy groups, had suddenly stopped trying to raise secret funds. So much of the allocated criminal investigation budget remained unused.

What was the slush fund money spent on? Police officials say it was used by directors of prefectural police headquarters or police chiefs to pay for thank-you parties or to ``encourage'' police officers working on investigations. They said that no slush fund money was spent on private purposes.

Yet some whistle-blowing officers say the money paid for golf games or wining and dining for higher-ranking police officials.

What is most astounding in these cases is that no police officer has been held criminally accountable for these actions. The three prefectural police organizations involved say they could find no case of criminal wrongdoing. If wrongdoers can be let off the hook by simply admitting their misbehavior and returning the money, there would be no need for police in the first place.

Indeed, had similar misdeeds been committed by other government agencies or private enterprises, the police would not have turned a blind eye.

High-ranking police officers who raised and controlled the secret funds are suspected of fraud and embezzlement. And the officers who prepared the fake receipts or fudged the books were committing forgery.

If the police can't investigate their internal wrongdoings, then the public prosecutors must step in.

On the other hand, police organizations must request necessary budgets that are fair and honest. Everybody knows that police work is a demanding job, requiring much work both day and night. Police officers should be rewarded for their labor with sufficient overtime pay, which should be determined through an in-depth study of their working conditions.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 27(IHT/Asahi: December 28,2004)