156 - Non-careers

【ノンキャリア、non-kyaria】

There are two ways to become a police officer. One is to take the national civil service examination. The other is to pass the local civil service examination. Non-careers are those who have passed the local civil service examinations. There are three types of local civil service police recruitment examinations: Type I, Type II, and Type III. Type I and II require a college degree, while Type III requires at least a high school diploma.

Upon passing this employment examination, the student will be admitted to the police academy. The academy is a boarding system, and college graduates receive 6 months of training, while high school graduates receive 10 months. After that, college graduates and high school graduates spend seven months and eight months, respectively, in the field working at police stations before returning to the police academy. After two months of education for a college graduate and three months for a high school graduate, they finally become police officers.

Every police officer who graduates from the police academy begins, of course, as a police officer. To become a Police Sergeant, a college graduate must have one year of work experience and a high school graduate must have four years of work experience after being assigned to a police department. In addition, there is a fixed number of applicants for the promotion examination, and the competition is 100 to 200 times higher than the standard examination, and it generally takes three to five years to pass. Those who fail to pass this test are given the title of Sergeant after 10 years of service, but this is not a formal position, but rather an honorary one, in practice no different from the one they had.

Upon promotion to Sergeant, the officer again goes to the police academy, where he undergoes an additional six-week course called the Sergeant Appointment Course and then returns to the field. To become a Lieutenant from the rank of Sergeant, one must again have a one-year work experience as a college graduate and a three-year work experience as a high school graduate, then take an examination, and if successful, take another course at the academy, go back to the field, and repeat the process from there. Needless to say, the higher up the ladder you go, the narrower the entrance pool becomes, and the more difficult it is to pass.

However, even though they can continue to be promoted this way, many non-careers reach only the rank of Lieutenant. If they advance to the position of Inspector or above, they must undergo a rigorous selection process, not an examination. If they reach the position of Senior Superintendent, they will have to move up the ranks from local to governmental official, an unbelievable advancement for a non-career.