Japan’s police officers learn to consider people with intellectual disabilities

From NHK

October 5 2020

A workshop was held to learn what kind of consideration police officers need to consider when asking people with intellectual disabilities to cooperate in the investigation.

According to the police, as the social participation of persons with disabilities progresses, there are more opportunities to hear from people with intellectual disabilities through interview investigations and job questions to related parties.

Under these circumstances, on the 5th, a workshop was held at the Amagasaki Minami Police Station for police officers to learn how to deal with people with intellectual disabilities.

In this case, the representative of a group of people with disabilities serves as a lecturer, and if you talk suddenly, you may be upset and you may not be able to speak, so you should speak slowly with gestures, not “that” or “there”. He emphasized that it is important to communicate using specific words.

A police officer who participated said, “I think that I may come into contact with people with disabilities in my work, so I learned. In the future, I would like to listen to one-on-one slowly in such situations.”

Yoshinori Fujii, Chief of the Amagasaki Minami Police Station, said, “There are times when police officers are scared and cannot open their hearts, but they will continue to talk slowly and clearly so as not to give fear. I want to let you do it. “