Police women in Japan?

Does Japan have female police officers, is this common?
Occured to me in all of the documentary/magazine pieces Ive ever seen in which uniform police were visible, I dont think Ive ever seen a woman...which of course is very common in US/EU/Australia..I think Ive even seen Chinese women cops.
Are they quite common, or still something of an unusual novelty?

Yes, there are quite a few policewomen. They are much more pleasant to deal with than the men.

I guess they would tend to seem to be.
But Ive never seen or heard of one.
t/y.

Yes there are police women in Japan. I don't know about which documentaries, but there are usually television dramas and movies in Japan about a women police officer or so.
You will often see policewomen on traffic duty issuing tickets etc. But there are women police motorcycle officers, undercover officers etc working in specialized roles , and of course there are regular armed street women officers.

Also in the law enforcement field, there are Women customs agents and immigration agents.

Police women in Japan play a big role today as there are divisions specializing on sexual abuse counseling provided by female officers. If you live in Japanl, you would see them all the time in their skirt uniforms and tiny vehicles.

However, I do realize that in news footages of harsh crime such as murder, the squad seems to be mostly men.

I don't know about elsewhere in smaller places, but most big areas now, policewomen wear regular uniform slackspants instead of skirts thesedays. I don't think I've seen a policewoman in a skirt in a while.