Police services of the Empire of Japan

The citizenry was organized into goningumi (Five-family associations), the forerunner of the tonarigumi, whose members had collective responsibility for the actions and activities of each one of their fellows.

The centralized police system steadily acquired extra functions, until it controlled almost all aspects of daily life, including fire prevention and the mediation of labor disputes.

During the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, the lack of an organized, trained standing army forced the central government to use units from the police bureau as militia to suppress the uprising.

Similar to Special Branches in the later Commonwealth of Nations, the Tokko investigated and suppressed potentially subversive ideologies, including anarchism, communism, and socialism, as well as monitoring the growing foreign population within Japan.

Japan set up civil police services overseas (in Korea, Kwantung Leased Territory, Taiwan, Karafuto, some extraterritorial Japanese dependencies in Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin before war started on the Chinese mainland).

From the 1930s period to the Pacific War of 1941-1945, other similar but "native" civil police-services operated in Manchukuo, Mengjiang and the Nanjing Nationalist Government.

After Japan surrendered in 1945, the American occupation authorities retained the prewar police structure pending the implementation of a new system.