The heads of 11 of Japan's 47 prefectural police commissions believe the National Police Agency should have punished a top police official in connection with a scandal that rocked the Niigata Prefectural Police in late January, according to a Kyodo News survey released Wednesday.
The 11 heads of local public safety commissions also said the National Public Safety Commission, which oversees the NPA, should not have endorsed the agency's decision not to punish Yoshiaki Nakada, 55, then head of the NPA's Kanto Regional Police Bureau, for drinking at a hot spring inn the night a high-profile case broke in the prefecture, the survey says.
Kyodo asked the heads of 46 of Japan's 47 prefectural safety commissions, the bodies responsible for their local police departments, about the series of police scandals that have hit the nation's police. The chief of the Nara police commission was hospitalized March 17 and was unavailable for comment.