insignia.166 As Sarah Kovner has argued on the basis of statistics compiled in 1950 by the Far East Command (FEC), throughout the occupation period a discrepancy existed between cases of rape reported and cases investigated and put to trial. Apparently, 422 servicemen were arrested on rape charges between 1947 and 1949, but only 104 were court-martialed, and only 53 were actually convicted.167 SCAP also responded to newspaper articles that addressed sexual assaults and other crimes against Japanese civilians committed by occupation personnel. On September 19, 1945, SCAP released an often-criticized press code, which prohibited among other things criticizing SCAP as well as its policies and personnel. Under the press code’s censorship guidelines, reports on harassments, assaults, and other crimes committed by American soldiers and sailors were deemed direct critiques of the occupation and the occupiers, and their publication was therefore prohibited.168 Both strategies, then, first, that of suspending or even declining to conduct investigations due to an alleged lack of information, and second, that of releasing the press code to censor news reports on servicemen’s crimes, were significant attempts by the occupation regime to officially silence sexual violence in early occupied Japan.
Preventive Measures: Police and Civilian Efforts and Agency
The Japanese police were in an ambivalent position in postsurrender Japan. As an integral institution of Japan’s defeated imperial state, the police had lost much of their sovereignty as the former legitimate agent of the state’s monopoly on physical force. The Japanese police had no right to intervene in or even investigate crimes committed by members of the occupation regime. In particular, crimes committed within the premises of the occupation army’s bases, such as black marketeering with U.S. army supplies, but also assaults on Japanese civilians working for the occupiers as translators, typists, caretakers, and cooks, were totally unascertainable by Japanese police officers. In the early days and weeks of the occupation period, much of the police work concerning the occupiers was thus limited to paperwork such as gathering information, securing evidence, and filing reports. Nevertheless, the police were still obligated to enforce Japanese law and maintain order among Japanese citizens. The Home Ministry directly ordered all police units to endure defeat by memorizing Emperor Hirohito’s call for a “grand peace for all the generations to come” (bansei ni taihei o hirakamu) in his radio broadcast of August 15. They were further ordered to maintain “pride” (kinji) in their work as representatives of the Japanese people and to embody additional values such as “open-heartedness” (kyoshin), “kindly, cordial manner” (konsetsu), and “speedy management” (jinsoku shori).169 Hence, during the first encounter of the early occupation period, a tense and uneven space in which to maneuver emerged for the Japanese police, who had to engage with Japanese civilians on the one hand, and with servicemen of the occupation army on the other.
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