Japan: Police Detention Cells to be Subject to Total Smoking Ban

Source from:  Yomiuri Shimbun  12/21/2012

The National Police Agency has decided to enforce a total ban on smoking in 1,226 detention cells at prefectural headquarters and police stations nationwide, starting April.
 
Detention officers as well as suspects placed in detention cells have been calling for smoking to be prohibited in all areas of detention cells.
 
The NPA decided to review the current system, under which suspects in detention cells are permitted to smoke, from the perspective of preventing the negative health effects of secondhand tobacco smoke. After the NPA revises laws and regulations relevant to detention cell management and other issues, the total smoking ban will go into effect on April 1.
 
Because cigarettes are currently categorized as personal items alongside candy and nonalcoholic beverages, suspects placed in detention cells have been permitted to smoke, according to the NPA.
 
Smoking areas are limited to indoor exercise areas where detained suspects can do light exercise. Most detention cells allow a limit of two cigarettes a day.
 
In contrast, other penal institutions such as detention centers and prisons prohibit smoking in all areas.
 
Among all prefectural police headquarters nationwide, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and the Okinawa prefectural police have already instituted smoking bans in all areas of their detention cells. The NPA says the bans have caused no major problems thus far.
 
With societal efforts to prevent passive exposure to tobacco smoke becoming prevalent, the NPA conducted a fact-finding study in July among detention officers to survey the situation.
 
It subsequently found that some suspects did not want to go into exercise areas because they did not like the smell of smoke. Some detention officers also said that they started to feel sick from watching suspects while they were smoking.
 
Because exercise areas in detention cells are usually confined to only 10 to 15 square meters of space and surrounded by three- to four-meter walls, they can easily become filled with cigarette smoke.
 
Taking the health management of nonsmoking suspects into consideration, the NPA decided to remove cigarettes from the list of "personal items" by revising relevant laws and regulations.
 
According to the survey, the smoking rate of suspects placed in detention cells stood at 60.6 percent, vastly exceeding the rate among adults in the general public at 20.1 percent, the figure found in a Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry survey conducted last year. Enditem