Youth Problems and Urban Social Control: Evidence from a Case of Local Community Policing in Contemporary Japan

The aim of this paper is to explain the relationship between youth problems and urban social control in contemporary Japan, taking into consideration my previous research about adolescent social problems in the 1990's and the recent direction of neoliberal social control. The author discusses moral panic derived from particular issues in Japanese social context, making reference to studies on crime and social control and the social construction of problematic youth representation that flourished in Anglophone critical geographies. While there are a lot of other reported problems related to young people in Japan, this paper specifically focuses on social problems concerning the regulation of Telephone Dating Services, which were seen as a new "harmful" environment for juveniles by neighborhoods in Toyama prefecture, Japan, from 1993-1998. There is widespread public concern about this problem in almost every prefectures of Japan and many people support the call for the enactment of a regulation act. It became necessary for the local government to protect these juveniles from such a "harmful" environment and to interfere with more sound education. The author considers "moral geographies" with reference to the policing and surveillance of offenders against the background of the protection act for juveniles, and suggests that this local process relates closely to the recent direction of urban social control from a regional to national scale. It is considered to be a precursor of the conservative youth policy in recent years, and continues with community-based social control in contemporary Japan.