The serious crime rate for U.S. service members off their bases is approximately half that of the Japanese population.

Wednesday 16th July, 07:44 AM JST

Lieutenant General Edward Rice, commander of U.S. forces in Japan, lamenting a “misperception” about the behavior of his troops. (AFP)

Latest 15 of 35 Total Comments Show All

sailwind at 08:29 PM JST - 16th July

I want to see the actual numbers and the basis on which this statement is made.

It just can't be true. Young men 18-30 of any nationality are much more likely to be involved in serious crime than an entire population which of course includes children and elderly people. Do the military numbers here include all those incidents where no further action is taken by the police due to 'lack of evidence'? I'd guess that even if there are supporting data it is based only on convictions rather than complaints.

I invite the officer to publish the evidence on which the claim is made. If he believes that it will stand detailed scrutiny.

Stats, Have a nice day.

http://www.dprkstudies.org/documents/asia015.html

http://nihon.awardspace.com/okinawasofacrime.html

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080226zg.html

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59767&archive=true
Naruki_Oni at 09:03 PM JST - 16th July

Zybster, I live on planet Earth, in the 21st century. Maybe you could join us sometime?

Somehow managing to not commit rape and not commit armed robbery is hardly what any sane and rational person would call "ideal". It's what we call "duh, of course". Maybe your world is a lot more horrible. Do you happen to live in Bush's Iraq?

Anyway, if the military cannot police its members better, then they need to GTFO of Japan. There is no excuse for this level of crime.

ON BASE there is little to no crime. Why is it so hard for you to expect that OFF BASE the crime rate should not explode? (Again, if you live in Darfur then I understand why your views are so backwards.)

The military institution handles these crimes very badly, preventing any attempt at justice by yanking the criminals back home before actual law enforcement can deal with them.

This earns them a most well-deserved black eye.

I know they do it because they don't want to "lose face" by having soldiers convicted. They think that would be terribly embarrassing to the nation, tsk tsk. So they hustle them back home under the false pretense of administering military justice.

But in the real world (albeit not quite as "real" as the Dachau you must live in) this is viewed as running away from responsibility.
sailwind at 09:14 PM JST - 16th July

ON BASE there is little to no crime. Why is it so hard for you to expect that OFF BASE the crime rate should not explode? (Again, if you live in Darfur then I understand why your views are so backwards.)

Ummm, Headline says:

The serious crime rate for U.S. service members off their bases is approximately half that of the Japanese population.

Half doesn't really qualify as an explosion.

The military institution handles these crimes very badly, preventing any attempt at justice by yanking the criminals back home before actual law enforcement can deal with them.

Do you have facts to back that up? Just curious since I know of no one that was arrested by the Japanese police or the Military under the SOFA when accused of a crime by a Japanese national to be sent back home. Please cite a specific case.
Alphaape at 09:21 PM JST - 16th July

ON BASE there is little to no crime. Why is it so hard for you to expect that OFF BASE the crime rate should not explode?

Naruki Oni, where did you get that stat from? There is plenty of crime onbase. Many cases of minor theft, teenage problems and yes the occasional assaults do occur. I read the police reports, and the more serious ones get reported to J police. I belive last week there was a story in Stars and Stripes about a drug possession onbase (Marine in Iwakuni was smoking pot in the barracks and had possession). The offer was made to turn him over to Japan authorities, but they turned it down since it occured onbase and decided to let the US handle it. Before we go down the much vautned "SOFA argument" it worked exactly as it should in this case. Marine is charged with a crime (on US property) and J Gov is given the opportunity to prosecute. They declined, so now he will get charged under UCMJ. If you read the blogs on what happened to the Marines who assualted females lately, you will see that this guy will get a pretty hard sentence against him. Sure the US will save face, by throwing the book at him.

The military institution handles these crimes very badly, preventing any attempt at justice by yanking the criminals back home before actual law enforcement can deal with them.

There is a thing called "legal hold" where if we have court cases or civil involvement pending, you can't leave. I almost fell to that when I had a minor "fender bender." They asked if I had any upcoming deployments or leave that would have taken me out of Japan. I did and they noted it. So, if needed, I would not have been able to depart.

So, yes the military does police it's own. If not, then why can't I drink in a bar after midnight tonight? Get your facts strait.
sailwind at 09:23 PM JST - 16th July

Another link for you Naruki

http://www.davidappleyard.com/japan/jp22.htm

I really don't think explosion applies.
Zybster at 11:01 PM JST - 16th July

Naruki Oni, it again seems to me you are quite detached from the reality. Have you been to Dachau? Do you really know what it was or was it just a name for you? My grandfather was there, as a prisoner, and I remember him telling me about it. Lots of details, which you cannot imagine. Please stop using this expression because you simply don't understand it.

Now, you talked about the "no-crime on base, explosion of crime off-base" world that you seem to know. I take it you would know it because you are a service person, right? Otherwise, could you give us some numbers why you say there is such a contrast?

Other posters also criticized your comment, mainly because it's simply your speculation and completely baseless. I was saying that any large social group will have crime committed by its members, and that naturally includes the US military. I was just reading about the foreign crime in Japan, please take a look here: http://www.jref.com/society/foreigncrimein_japan.shtml

This page gives lots of statistics, and among them they compare the crime among different nationalities. The numbers are: Japan - 0.291% Korea - 0.024% China - 0.428% USA - 0.016%

These are statistics from Japan's National Police Agency (NPA), so you wouldn't accuse them of lowering the statistics for the Americans. Now, if for the US citizens the crime rate is 0.016%, and there is such an "explosion" of crime off base among military, then the crime rate among the civilian Americans would have to be below 0.

So, unless you give us some real numbers on which you are basing your expression, please allow us to think about your opinion as completely biased and worthless.
Zybster at 11:06 PM JST - 16th July

The link doesn't seem to be displayed right because of the formatting style of JP, so please make sure that there is an underline sign between the words after the slash: foreign/underline/crime/underline/in/underline/japan.shtml

http://www.jref.com/society/foreign_crime_in_japan.shtml
Alphaape at 11:47 PM JST - 16th July

Zybster, Good article and good information. It seems that according to this, you are statistically safer hanging around Americans than those Chinese women on the corners offering "massagge." :)
medievaltimes at 11:55 PM JST - 16th July

Great quote.

No matter what the reality is, Japanese people are sooooo easily influenced and not capable of making independent logical thought.
Papawhale at 01:43 AM JST - 17th July

No matter what the crime "rate" is, every time a young Japanese girl is raped or assaulted or murdered by an American soldier, another family is traumatized or destroyed. One is too many, and that's an atrocity.
medievaltimes at 08:34 AM JST - 17th July

No matter what the crime "rate" is, every time a young Japanese girl is raped or assaulted or murdered by an American soldier, another family is traumatized or destroyed. One is too many, and that's an atrocity.

Papa - So if one is too many for American soldiers, is two also too many for Japanese men since the Lieutenant General pointed out the double rate?
MrMukatsuku at 01:12 PM JST - 18th July

"On average, US forces in Japan commit half as many serious crimes as the general public, announced their commander Lieutenant General Edward Rice, based in Yokosuka. Japan."

Peculiar, because close to 500,000 Japanese live in Yokosuka, and an estimated 10,000 US troops live and work on the US base.

Does this mean that it only takes 10,000 Americans to commit the same number of crimes as 250,000 Japanese?

So an American serviceman is only 25 times more likely to perform a serious criminal act than the locals.

Now I understand why, when I lived in Yokosuka, the majority of the local population avoided me, regarding me with about as much affection as you would reserve for a baby-eating monster that could go off-reservation at any moment. The locals that found out I was not American were fine but living in such a charged atmosphere, I got out and moved to ****** - where all of the local kids have a chirpy 'Hello' whenever they see me and the mothers don't regard me as an American looking for a KFC (Kentucky Fried Child).
Zybster at 01:38 PM JST - 18th July

MrMukatsuku, you sure flashed your intelligence here. Does the word "crime rate" mean anything to you? But I guess I'm wasting my breath trying to explain such a complicated expression.
MrMukatsuku at 02:00 PM JST - 18th July

OK Zyb, no need to breath - Rate does not enter into it. Crime is crime. It is not seasonal. It does not keep business hours. Real people get hurt.

What is important is the perception of our hosts, and Rice has shot himself in the foot and handed them the gun.

Japanese people in Yokosuka see a 'Westerner' and they equate this with danger.
marshalsea at 01:17 AM JST - 25th July

Statistically speaking, while crime has increased here since the economic implosion in the early 1990's, Japan remains one of the world's safest societies. The media here is largely responsible for sensationalizing the crime that does occur - they and Japanese politicians are jointly responsible for perpetuating the largely incorrect myth that foreigners (including US military) are mostly responsible for increases in Japanese crime.

When VISA infractions (like overstays) are removed from the statistics, foreigners as a whole account for a relatively SMALL proportion of crimes committed in Japan. The largest proportion is committed by Japanese nationals.

Some of the criminal activity in Japan today wasn't criminal a decade ago. There have been reforms, new laws, and changes to the ages that youth can be charged which complicate the picture and the statistics.

Unfortunately Japanese often buy into the hype, and politicians gain points by exploiting it. Over the past few years Japanese have begun pushing for more police presence around their neighborhood schools in response to media blitzes whenever something happens to a child, yet over the past decade school related crimes have decreased significantly. There's a definite disjoint between perception and statistical reality.

While I agree with Alphaape that there are some educated criminals in jails, I also believe that the higher the level of education, the lower the chance of being involved in crime. Most N.Americans in Japan need a university degree to work here, (he says much of the military have higher education too, and that's probably true) and I doubt this group (including military) contributes significantly to crime in Japan outside of VISA or other minor infractions. Foreigners in Japan are different, and as such we're convenient media and political scapegoats.