The National Police Agency wants more Tokyo-area police officers — rather than civilians — to be the initial arresting parties in cases of alleged groping on trains in light of the rising number of acquittals due to insufficient evidence.
The NPA ordered the Metropolitan Police Department and the Saitama and Kanagawa prefectural forces on Monday to introduce steps to increase officer-initiated arrests.
Citizen's arrests of someone caught red-handed are legal and common in groping cases, usually initiated by the alleged victim. But authorities have a hard time gathering incriminating evidence as well as witnesses, and often end up having to rely on the claim made by the victims.
The NPA order was issued at a meeting of officers in charge of groping cases on crowded commuter trains.
Masahito Kanetaka, head of the NPA Criminal Investigation Bureau, underscored the importance of arrests made by police, noting that investigators bear a grave responsibility when deciding whether to detain people collared by civilians.
The NPA recently compiled guidelines on train groping cases after the Supreme Court in June acquitted a professor of the National Defense Medical College who had been indicted in 2006 for allegedly molesting a 17-year-old high school girl on a packed Odakyu Line train in Tokyo.
The guidelines urge thorough investigations to obtain witnesses and gather evidence that can back up the testimony of alleged victims.
The NPA instruction came with a perfect example Monday, with police in Nagoya arresting a high school teacher on suspicion of groping a 17-year-old high school student on a morning train.
Koji Inukai, 44, an English teacher at Nagoya Kita High School, allegedly groped the same girl on more than 10 occasions since last fall. The student had consulted the police. On Monday, five officers accompanied her.