With street lights turned off and windows being kept open at night, due to power-saving efforts after the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, security patrols are on the alert to fight off a summer outbreak of crime.
With street lights turned off and windows being kept open at night, due to power-saving efforts after the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, security patrols are on the alert to fight off a summer outbreak of crime.
At 9 p.m. on a warm and muggy night, a park in front of a subway station in Tokyo's Koto Ward is quiet, except for the occasional hustle and bustle as trains arrive and many passengers get off.
Ryuichi Onodera, 28, and his colleagues from a security company, make rounds of the park in groups of three. They check behind bushes, in restrooms and ensure that the playground equipment is not damaged. Koto Ward started nightly patrols of its parks at the end of July, commissioning security companies, including the company Onodera works for.
Funding for the patrols comes from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's emergency job creation subsidies.
Security guards monitor 81 of the ward's 253 parks from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m.
Patrols were started after residents complained that parks were dark and threatening since the ward had cut a quarter of the lighting at each as an energy-saving measure.
Tadanori Koseki, a 75-year-old resident of the Kameido 2-chome district, said, "I have come to take a good look (during the neighborhood watch) more carefully and frequently than before."
Koseki has been patrolling the neighborhood for eight years since the neighborhood association started the voluntary watch once a week.
After the March 11 earthquake, the association added routes where lights do not reach, such as the back of buildings.
The association patrols use more flashlights than before, but because it's so dark they often are almost struck by bicyclists, Koseki said.
Also, the land ministry's Kanto Regional Bureau has turned off about half of the 80,000 streetlights along the national road to save electricity.
Still some governments have decided they may have went too far in the interest of conserving energy.
Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward, which had 90 percent of the lights in its parks turned off, plans to lower the rate to 50 percent or less.
"We have made the decision in light of other wards and for security reasons," an official said.
Setagaya Ward's Shimotakaido shopping district, which had halved the lighting in its park, returned to full lighting in mid-May.
Residential houses are scattered around the shopping mall, which spreads in four directions from Shimotakaido Station, and contains an elementary school building in the center.
Residents and store operators had complained about the reduced lighting, saying, "We have poor visibility" and "Security should come first as children pass the mall."
However, the reduced lighting has helped the sales of crime-prevention items.
Yoshio Co., a security products maker in Tokyo's Adachi Ward, has sold 18,000 whistles that contain reflective materials in the past five months, about six times more than shipments in the entire 2010, an official said.
The official said shipments of products using reflective materials are generally on the rise.
"Perhaps customers became interested in security goods because the streets got darker," a company official said.
The Tokyu Hands store in Shinjuku, a hobby and crafts shop, said about six times more auxiliary locks, which enable windows to remain firmly in place while they are open, were sold in July than the same month last year.
Living Design Center Ozone in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward displays energy-saving products, including a shutter that contains a small window that can be opened.