Public Safety, Peace, and Social Justice

It's something I sometimes go years without thinking about, but this week, as I found myself returning home after midnight several times, I was impressed by the level of public safety in metropolitan Tokyo. The trains I have been on this last week, even on Friday night, were not filled with inebriated salariman, but with office workers returning home from working overtime or from going out for dinner and drinks, nearly half of them young or middle-aged women, in their 20s to 40s (presumably lightly armed).
Just for a moment, it seemed amazing that trains packed with commuters can arrive, not just late at night, but after midnight, and that thousands of women can walk safely home from the station alone, even in heels, and not even think about being afraid for their personal safety.
This is the situation, not just in one neighborhood, but in every neighborhood of this city, and every other city in Japan. I think we could find a few similarly safe neighborhoods in the (smaller) American metropolises of New York City, Los Angeles, or Chicago, but not entire cities or states with a comparable level of public safety.
Sure, there is the occasional nutcase with a kitchen knife on a bicycle, stabbing multiple victims, but in a city of 20 million, you have to expect one or two people to wig out every once in a while.
The Japanese are aware that public safety in Japan is better than most other places, and they are proud of it. The foreign is seen as a dangerous place. Too much safety makes Japanese lacking in street smarts and protective paranoia.
Their own explanation tends toward the racist: we Japanese are one people, one ethnic group, therefore safe. Foreign police forces, enviously attribute the public safety to the Koban system of public policing.
I have always attributed this to the destruction of the class (and lingering caste) differences in the post-war period of occupation and social reconstruction. The new society was much more equal, and hence more democratic. Equality led to less crime.
Similar post-war redistributions of wealth in places such as West Germany and Britain led to crime rates that were much less than the United States as well. The IRA and Baader-Meinhof are exceptions that existed for different reasons and don't change the relative statistical differences.
Free or inexpensive public services such as education, health care, day care, and the like also enhance the relative equality of income. Estate taxes as high as 50% whittle away the excessive accumulated wealth of the hyper-rich.
As the Japanese are now restructuring their economy in a more American direction, tolerating and even encouraging greater inequality to stimulate the economy, we will see if the crime rate rises.
Currently, America is ruled by the criminal class, a kleptocracy attempting to veil itself in a theocratic shroud. After centuries with no effective revolution or redistribution of wealth, the families which profit(ed) from piracy, imperialism, and slavery are still our ruling class, the owners of the industries and media, while the former slaves are still the underclass. I think we could see the United States move toward reasonable, Japanese, or at least western European levels of crime, if the society were to be restructured and the wealth redistributed. Some may call that "socialism", but I don't think it is socialist for the fire department to extinguish a fire regardless of the value of the house, or for the police to answer a call regardless of the wealth of the caller. Justice, and equality of opportunity, should be a right.
The US is tending towards the inequality of the feudal social structures which were imposed on Latin America. Do not be surprised that American crime rates are more like those of Colombia, Argentina, El Salvador, or Chile than Japan, Britain, or West Germany.