The leaders of the coalition government agreed on new measures to reform the nation's scandal-tainted police system on Tuesday, during a review of recent police misdemeanors in Kanagawa and Niigata prefectures.
The policy chiefs of the three ruling parties agreed to have so-called "career" police officials, elite bureaucrats who have passed a prestigious national exam, work at a local police station with rank-and-file officers for about five years.
Normally, such career officials, who make up only 0.2 percent of the nation's entire police force, get promoted to such positions as criminal investigation department chief of prefectural police while they are in their 20s.