Article published on November 4th, 1984.

HEADLINE: POLICE IN JAPAN: BADGES HAVE LOST THEIR SPARKLE

A few years back, an American political scientist who had studied police behavior here wrote that Japan was ''heaven for a cop.''

Basically, it still is. The crime rate is low, the police are highly efficient and they enjoy a broad respect that contrasts vividly with the ''us versus them'' attitude prevalent in many American cities.

Even in a police heaven, though, these have been devilish days, and events over the weekend underscored the recent troubles of the country's nearly 220,000 officers.

A series of unrelated incidents have made them look less than effective and beyond reproach, and more like refugees from a Joseph Wambaugh novel. It is apparent, from conversations and recent newspaper and magazine articles, that Japanese confidence in law enforcement officials has been shaken.

''There is an accumulated sense among citizens of distrust toward the police,'' the newspaper Asahi said in a recent editorial.

2 Officers Arrested for Robbery

Several months ago, in separate cases, two police officers in Hyogo Prefecture in central Japan were arrested on charges of robbing banks to help repay loan sharks. Also in Hyogo, officers were charged with taking bribes to alert gambling parlors of impending raids.

In a widely publicized case, a former police sergeant confessed three weeks ago to having killed a policeman in Kyoto and a loan-company employee in Osaka.

Over the last year, three men held in prison on death row have had their convictions overturned by courts that ruled the police had obtained confessions through force. A lawyers' group in Tokyo has charged that this is not an uncommon practice, citing instances in which officers purportedly beat suspects brutally, tied them to furniture and bombarded them with round-the- clock questioning until they gave in.

Perhaps nothing has damaged the reputation of the police more than their inability to solve an extortion plot that has been one of the more bizarre crime stories here in many years and nothing short of a national preoccupation.

Candy Companies Victimized

Someone or some group obviously has it in for two leading Japanese confectionery companies, Ezaki Glico and Morinaga. Whoever it is kidnapped the president of Glico last March, demanding millions of dollars in ransom. After that failed, the people involved threatened to poison his company's candies. They so undermined his business that sales plummeted and he had to lay off workers.

In recent weeks, the extortionists, believed to be the same people, have turned their attention to Morinaga. This time, however, they actually put lethal doses of poison into the candy.

At least 18 boxes of cyanide-treated chocolates have been found on store shelves in several cities. All had typewritten warnings attached to the packages. No one has been hurt thus far, but the culprits warned in letters to newspapers - all signed ''the mystery man with 21 faces'' - that more poisoned candy would be distributed. Next time, they said, there would be no warning labels.

The police have mobilized for this case as they have for no other. They concluded, for example, that the extortionists had been notably active on weekends in mailing their letters and depositing tainted candy in stores. So for a second consecutive weekend, 40,000 officers - nearly one out of five in Japan - were assigned to stakeouts in supermarkets and stores across the country, particularly in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. They checked shelves and kept an eye on customers.

'Poor, Stupid Cops' Derided

As best as could be determined by tonight, all this activity produced nothing - certainly nothing to end private conversations about what was wrong with the police. For seven months they have had to endure the added indignity of being sneered at in the extortionists' letters as ''poor, stupid cops.''

''We do not recall a case in which criminals have made such fools of the police,'' the newspaper Yomiuri said in an editorial.

The National Police Agency, which sets nationwide standards even though nearly all officers are organized into prefectural forces, does not see it that way.

''I don't believe this has damaged public trust in the police, and our morale has not been affected,'' said Hiroshi Shinohara, a deputy director of the Criminal Investigation Bureau.

However, the authorities have tried to show they are on top of things. The Government began a campaign urging Japanese to buy products of the Morinaga Company, whose sales have dropped by 60 percent. And the police have kept up a steady flow of announcements and news leaks.

Special Phone Lines Set Up

They have even set up special telephone lines - in effect, ''dial-an-extortionist'' - so that people could listen to, and possibly identify, the voices of a woman and child who sent a taped threatening message to Morinaga.

''Glico-Morinaga is a new type of crime for Japan,'' said Takuro Suzuki, an expert on police matters who has written extensively on the subject. ''And the police are using old-style investigation techniques, so they're always behind.''

What also makes this case unusual for Japan, Mr. Suzuki said, is that the criminals have captured the public imagination with their brazenness.

''Some citizens are enjoying this as a nonfiction drama,'' he said. ''I don't think the investigative powers of the Japanese police are declining, but they should consider that social changes may be increasing more rapidly than they can deal with.''

With more traditional crimes, it is hard to imagine any police force that has greater competence than Japan's, for all its recent woes. Would-be officers must pass a rigid examination, and only one in seven applicants is accepted. Nearly all the top officials are graduates of Japan's most prestigious college, Tokyo University.

Crime Rate Is Low

''The ordinary citizen expects exemplary behavior from policemen and has been given few reasons for believing this unrealistic,'' said David H. Bayley, a political science professor at the University of Denver who called this country ''heaven for a cop'' in his study, ''Forces of Order.''

Japan's very low crime rate is well- known, and one frequently cited reason is the network of koban, or police boxes, similar to kiosks, that are situated every few blocks in the big cities, staffed by officers who know their neighborhoods intimately.

It helps explain why the police, according to their figures, solved 97.1 percent of the 1,764 murders reported nationwide last year and 55.3 percent of all thefts. The comparable rates in the United States, as compiled by the National Police Agency, were 73.5 percent for murder and 17.3 percent for theft.

Despite their obvious efficacy, Mr. Suzuki believes the Japanese police will have to work harder to maintain their reputation. Cases such as Glico- Morinaga, he said, can only hasten the undermining of faith in police reliability.

Reflecting that was one of the cheekier letters from ''the mystery man with 21 faces.'' It suggested that certain senior officers resign if they fail to find him. Whatever else they may think of the ''mystery man,'' some Japanese saw merit in that idea.