Statistics for Recent USFJ Crime Rate on Okinawa Released

• Songtan1
  9:06 pm on February 20th, 2008 1

  GI Korea…..well done.

• US Marines on Okinawa Face Scrutiny Over Recent Crimes
  5:24 am on February 21st, 2008 2

  [...] I now have a new posting up that has the crime stats for Okinawa for 2002-2007 that are quite [...]

• GI Korea
  9:40 am on February 21st, 2008 3

  Songtan1 thanks but I have to credit the Stars & Stripes writers who found the updated stats because I sure could not find them.

  I’m glad the information has been released so people can see the stats for themselves and make up their own minds.

• Yehiam Weitz
  1:05 pm on February 21st, 2008 4

  I’ve been reading GI’s website for sometime now, and it seems that one of his stock methods in attempting to debunk notions that run contrary to his own biased and ingrained prejudices is to do a meta-analysis of statistics pertaining to the issues in question. I’ll admit that superficially they’re rather convincing, but once held up to scrutiny they become suspect.

  For instance, recently there was his attempt to prove that Koreans statistically commit more drug-related offenses than foreigners. The conclusion of that analysis, however, ended up being qualified when Robert Koehler at the Marmot’s Hole ran his own numbers. In particular, Koehler’s analysis of drug offenses by native English instructors clearly shows how broad and downright misleading GI’s analysis was. And let’s also not forget GI’s attempt to show that the New York Times was manipulating statistics in their story about returning Iraqi veterans committing murder. Yes it’s true that returning soldiers statistically commit less crime that the average civilian. But what GI seems to forget, is that civilians who commit heinous crimes usually have a past history of similar acts. Returning veterans on the other hand do not. In fact, it’s their lack of previous psychological or criminal problems that allowed them to enlist in the first place. So when individuals who’ve had no history of mental or criminal disorder return home from a brutal conflict and end up committing murder it is damn sure statistically significant.

  And in his latest episode of statistical meta-analysis, GI attempts to prove that USFJ commit statistically less crime that the average Okinawans. If one were to simply adopt GI’s ham-handed method of statistical analysis and simply compare the total population of one group to another and their respectivce crime rates, then it shouldn’t be all that suprising that Okinawans commit more crime than USJF. It’s a simply law of probability: more Okinawans, more chances of crimes. Less number of USJF, less chance of crimes. All in all, it’s a pretty blunt and unsophisticated way of going about things and masks a lot of important other stuff.

  For instance, what seems to elude GI is that given the huge presence of US force in Okinawa there is inevitably an extensive array of bars and brothels that cater to U.S. military and civilian personnel. And like most bars and brothels criminal enterprises call the shots. So in all likelihood, the higher number of crimes that GI seems to think that Okinawans commit in relation to USFJ are being commited by the omerata organizations and other hoodlums that run establishments servicing U.S. personnel. In other words, it’s not the average Okinawan whose committing more crimes than USFJ personnel. Rather, its the Okinawan who is economically dependent on USFJ personnel that is committing more crimes.

  Moreover, of the 5,157 crimes commited by USFJ personnel between 1972-2002, approximately 10% or 533 are “heinous” crimes of murder or rape. Statistically this works out to 17.7 heinous crimes per yer and 1.5 heinous crimes per month. For an organization that is suppose to maintain discipline and order this seems to be a pretty sad record.

  The statistic, however, that is most striking is a study comparing the rates of military sexual assualt leading to court martial around the world from 1988-1994. According the Dayton Daily News, Okinawa had a rate of 4.12 per 1000. While Camp Pendelton was 2.0., Camp Lejeuene 1.75., San Diego 1.09., and Norfolk .80.

  This statistic lead to the most important point and the true reason that Japanese and Okinawans get so upset when U.S. military personnel commit crimes: unlike Okinawa, DOD personnel working or stationed at Pendelton, Lejeune, Norfolk or San Diego are subject to American law when they commit sexual assualt. In Okinawa, however, military and other DOD personnel come under the jurisdiction of U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement. And under that agreement, it is highly possible for U.S. personnel to evade investigation, prosecution, or even jail time.

  Consider: According art vxii(3)(c): “The custody of an accused member U.S. armed forces…over whom Japan is to excercise jurisdiction shall, if he is in the hands of the United States, remain with the United States until he is charged.” In practice this means that Japanese investigators are hindered from having access to a suspect who has commited a crime in their country. And by having truncated access, it is very difficult to carry out an effective investigation and in turn this makes prosecutors reluctant to indict due to insufficient evidence. Only in cases when the U.S. wishes to have “sympathetic consideration” will the U.S. consider handing over service personnel before and indictment is issued. All in all, however, the prerogative and choice is with the Americans not the Japanese. Furthermore, article ix(2) states: “Members of the U.S. armed forces shall be exempt from Japanese passport and visa law regulations”. This means that there is the high possibility that U.S. armed service personnel can leave the country with nary an obstacle.

  Even if GI’s attempts to show that Okinawans commit more crimes than USFJ personnel was ironclade, un-spinnable fact, it still wouldn’t address the issue of how the Japanese government is at the mercy of the U.S. government when a crime has been committed on their native shores by U.S. personnel. A crime, commited in Japan against a Japanese citizen has to be conducted in a manner that is pleasing to American sensibilities. Tell me GI, do you really not see why Japanese get so pissed off?

• Skippy-san
  3:27 pm on February 21st, 2008 5

  8000 Marines to Guam? Yea, like there is no crime in Guam!

  If you put these stats up agains those of a CONUS based fleet concentration area-the FDNF is always more well behaved. And it is illegal to impose liberty limits in a US territory. So in Guam-no curfew or Gen Order #1.

  As it should be.

• GI Korea
  4:28 pm on February 21st, 2008 6

  Yehiam,

  I’m not going to bother addressing you ridiculous claims that have nothing to do with subject. You can leave a comment on those particular postings if you have something to say about them and then I will shoot you down there which will be easy enough to do.

  Now addressing the topic at hand. Next time just leave links to your left wing websites because I don’t consider the Dayton Daily News an authority on anything.

  I clearly said in my post that USFJ personnel on Okinawa have been committing less crime then the general population since the 1970’s because if you look at the graph as I have encouraged everyone to do you can see that servicemembers in the 1970’s were out of control on Okinawa.

  Then the trend drops in the 80’s even more in the 90’s to where we are today. Also “heinous” crimes are not just murder and rape. They are murder, robbery, rape, arson and sexual assault which you and the left wing website you got the passage from conveniently left out. Look at the graph and see how few “heinous” crimes are happening now compared to the 1970’s.

  You want to judge the servicemembers on Okinawa by what happened in the 1970’s, I’m judging them by what they are doing now.

  As far as the SOFA name one person who committed a crime in Japan and then flew home because of the SOFA. Just one?

  I have had soldiers who have gotten trouble before they left Korea for example and guess what they can’t fly away. We actually warn soldiers about this that if they commit a crime they are stuck in Korea until the justice system is through with them. The Stars & Stripes is filled with stories of soldiers who got extended because they committed a crime days before leaving.

  You and your like minded anti-military type’s fantasy of GIs committing crimes and flying back home is totally untrue and a figment of your imagination.

  As for the rest of the SOFA I will have posting put up tomorrow that will debunk your claims.

• Yehiam Weitz
  10:18 pm on February 21st, 2008 7

  That’s right GI, anyone who lodges any sort of criticism concerning the U.S. military is some sort of leftist, pinko communist. Nice way to evade the issue at hand on your part GI. But let me say this from a personal perspective; as a person whose worked overseas for the U.S. State Department for a number of years in places such as Korea, Italy, and the Philippines I can’t tell you how exasperated people like me become every time yet another U.S. service personnel commits a horrible crime. While the U.S. soldier gets treated with kiddy gloves after his despicable act by the U.S. military, it’s usually people like me and my colleagues who have to prostrate and supplicate ourselves before the host countries authorities. Let me tell you GI, it’s a very hard pill to swallow that you can’t even begin to imagine.

  If you insist on talking about how on a statistical level USFJ personnel commit less crime than the average Okinawan fine. But I would bring up the point that this is a huge act of intellectual cowardice on your part. To sit their and give scant acknowledgment to the fact that U.S. service personnel in Okinawa can get processed through a different legal and judicial standards for crimes commited on Japanese soil, to Japanese citizens is, let’s call a spade a spade here, dishonest.

  What your confusing GI is quantity for quality. It doesn’t mean anything if USFJ commit less crimes statistically than the average Okinawan. If the the Okinawans were empowered to investigate and prosecute those small number crimes which are commited on their soil, against there citizens, according to their laws then the intensity of the controversy would much less. That, however, isn’t the case under the current SOFA. When a crime is commited by a U.S. soldier on Japanese soil, against a Japanese citizen, the Japanese state’s basic powers of righting that wrong are abrogated by the DOD. I don’t know what you call it in the military GI, but at the State Department we call that infringement on sovreignty.

  Given you ultra-nationalist viewpoints, I highly doubt that you would tolerate the same sort of situation had the tables been turned.

• Agnes
  5:01 am on February 22nd, 2008 8

  A very interesting post. It’s nice to see someone actually doing research work instead of just stating opinions.
  But statistics are still a very relative thing.
  Here you’re comparing total number of crimes of one group to total number of crimes of the whole population, without discriminating between crime types.
  Now I find it a bit hard to compare rape and theft.
  The crimes listed in Japundit (from which link I arrived to this site) were all in the heavy crime list, not thefts and such. especially since those crimes were not only rapes, but rapes commited against MINORS. A better comparison of crime rate between local population/US personel in Okinawa would be comparing similar crimes commited by both population groups. Would then the percentage for the US Military really look as good as it does when comparing overall crime numbers? Can you give me the statistics for overall rapes/murders only compared to those commited by US military personel?
  Also statistics comparing rapes of minors in general population as compared to rapes of minors commited by US personel. How is the statistic looking in those cases?

• GI Korea
  5:09 am on February 22nd, 2008 9

  Yehiam,

  You got your information from a left wing website and I called you anti-military which obviously you are judging by your comments.

  I will have a SOFA posting up today but I’m still waiting for you to provide one example of a GI committing a crime and flying home and getting away with it.

  I also would like you to provide an example of a GI committing a crime on Okinawa and the GI not being processed through the Okinawa legal system because of the SOFA.

• GI Korea
  5:36 am on February 22nd, 2008 10

  Agnes,

  If you look at the list that Japundit had, look when the majority of those infamous crimes happened, the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. I’m not defending what happened back then which was obviously one really out of control situation on the island.

  If you look at things recently you can see the servicemembers on the island are behaved much better than compared to the 1970’s. However, to expect no crime to happen in a population that big especially with a lot of young males drinking alcohol is not realistic.

  You are right to compare stats by crime type but the Okinawa Prefecture website does not provide that information. I will look around the web today when I have time to see if I can dig anything up.

  I do not follow USFJ crime incidents as closely as I do USFK and I can’t read Japanese like I can Korean to browse through Korean websites for stats. Hopefully these stats spur people who read Japanese to do some digging on Japanese government websites to find stats because those are more reliable than just quoting something some stat on a random website.

• Yehiam Weitz
  9:40 am on February 22nd, 2008 11

  GI:

  So what if it’s from “left-wing” website? As a personal opinion, I find it beyond cheap that you try and discredit the research and concluded opinions of others simply because of the political or ideological views they hold. Has it ever occured to your parochial and insular self that despite differing political views, those individuals might have something useful to say? According to this way of thinking I should just dismiss outright all your statistical meta-analysis given your acute military/right-wing, bordering on fascist views. However, I don’t. I don’t bring into question your ideological views in order to discredit your assumptions. Instead I question the arguments and facts that you’ve marshalled. I’ve extended you the same courtesy and I ask that you do likewise.

  Furthermore, your demand for examples misses a larger point. Even if the U.S military has handed over U.S. service personnel for processing under Japanese law, it has always been done according to the prerogatives and discretions of U.S. military authorities. Consider the case of of Timothy Woodland. During the rape investigation there was grave hesitations about handing Woodland over before the issuing of an indictment. In fact, U.S. military authorities hemmed and hawed for FOUR DAYS before handing him over to local investigators. And instead of seeing it as doing their part in helping to solve the case of a horrendous crime, the DOD authorities worried more about the fact that they were setting a “precedent” in handing Woodland over early to local authorities. I don’t know GI, for a person who labors so hard to show the humanitarian side of the U.S. military, this expressed sentiment sure doesn’t help I suppose.

  Also, consider the case of Major Michael Brown. In the investigation surrounding his sexual assualt, U.S. authorities simply refused outright in handing Brown over before the issuance of an indictment. It’s clear in the Brown case that the U.S. authorities were deliberately hampering with the work of local investigators in not handing Brown over for interrogation.

  What these two examples should make clear as day to you GI, is that when a crime is commited on Japanese soil, against a Japanese citizen, SOFA makes it so that all the cards are in the hands of U.S. authorities. In some instances, the U.S. will hand over a soldier before issuance of an indictment to help local investigators. But then in other instance they won’t. And it’s this very real and palpable perception, GI, on the part of Okinawans that in an instance when their local authorities should be given autonomy to investigate a crime commited against their citizen on their soil, they have to ask permission, get “sympathetic consideration”, or simply protest like hell for U.S authorities to extend that courtesy.

  So it’s the rules and the ways that they’ve been rigged that unintentionally, but inevitabely, humiliate and anger local authorities. Yeah, I’ll concede that the U.S. military EVENTUALLY cooperates. But it’s only according to when it suits them, is comfortable for them. And that GI, isn’t so much me being “anti-military” as it is me calling out bullshit when I see it.

  Anyways, that’s my spiel. How about the SOFA post now?

• natto
  6:19 pm on February 22nd, 2008 12

  The problem is 99 percent of the victims of the crimes committed by USFJ soldiers are Japanese while 99 percent of the victims of the crimes committed by okinawans are Japanese. Therefore, comparing the crime rates is not relevant to the subject.

• GI Korea
  8:11 pm on February 23rd, 2008 13

  I find it interesting you think I’m bordering on fascism because I link to statistics from an official Okinawa Prefecture website while you post statistics from a left wing website. Also you make claims that all these servicemembers and committing crimes and flying home and yet cannot substantiate this claim.

  Then you provide two cases as examples that if people actually look at the two cases support the very reason why a SOFA is necessary. In Woodland’s case the military waited four days to hand him over to ensure his civil rights were not going to be violated due to Japanese detention and coerced interrogation tactics that have been condemned by even Amnesty International. Obviously you could care less about Woodland’s civil rights.

  For people who want to read about Woodland’s case here is a very good article about it:

  http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,170085,00.html

  Woodland’s case was a he said she said rape case where if you read the TIME article a lot of females on Okinawa thought the claims from the victim were very dubious.

  Your next example for Major Michael Brown is one of the best examples I have seen of why SOFAs are needed. Brown is at the officer mess and hooks up with a Filipina bartender that works there. She picks him up and they park. They start making out but then she has second thoughts and backs out. The Major gets pissed and threw her phone into the river. She is upset and drives to the front gate of the base and complains to the MPs the major tried to rape her.

  To make a long story short his accuser testified at his trial that she made up the allegations because she was upset at him throwing her cell phone and wanted the MPs to find him so she could demand that he pay her for the lost phone. However, when the Japanese police got involved she could not understand Japanese and before she knew the case blew up into a rape case. She also testified that he did not try to rape her and that she did not want him convicted or sent to jail:

  http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=15145&archive=true

  The Japanese court convicted him anyway for attempted indecent assault even though his accuser said no such thing happened. He was given a suspended sentence and let go. It was a facing saving measure because it gave the Japanese prosecutors a conviction while at the same time allowing him to go free. Both sides win if you don’t take into account all the time Brown spent in jail because the Okinawa authorities would not give him bail for a crime that never happened. Then you wonder why the military authorities would not hand him over before an indictment was issued.

  With examples like these you are making my case for why a SOFA is needed for me.

  By the way the SOFA article is posted here:

  http://rokdrop.com/2008/02/22/gi-myths-the-unfair-us-korea-sofa/

• usinkorea
  8:16 am on February 24th, 2008 14

  Yehiam Weitz is typical of so many you hear on the Korea side. So bold in claims but then falls back and back and back when pressed to justify.

  One side question I had in skimming the debate was: if Weitz was working the embassy or consulate, did diplomatic immunity reach down to his level?

  In the end, the most these people end up having to hang their hat on is some intellectual sense of “national rights” ………… some sense of “bully America” forcing nations to give up their rights to the foreign oppressor………and this line is eventually untenable as well when you consider how standard such things as the SOFA are in international law and practice…..

  It ends up being little more than feel good, intellectual cotton candy to make people like Weitz feel better about themselves…..

• Zatoichi
  9:16 pm on February 24th, 2008 15

  After reading this post, I was interested enough to go and look up some figures myself. I found Japanese language reports from the Okinawa Prefectural government that give more detailed statistics than the English language reports. I’ve used this data to create some graphs and published these at the URL below along with links to the original reports.

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

• The 'rape' of Okinawa - Page 16 - Okinawa Japan Forum
  7:59 pm on March 20th, 2008 16

  [...] The compilation of reports found here appears to contradict Johnson’s hyperbolic rape stats fantasy. http://rokdrop.com/2008/02/20/statis…nawa-released/ [...]

• US Sailor Linked to Cab Driver Murder in Japan
  7:40 am on March 23rd, 2008 17

  [...] The sailor had been AWOL for weeks before being linked to this murder.  What I can’t figure out is that if you murder someone, why would you leave your credit card and other items in the cab for the police to find?  Doesn’t make much sense to me.  Anyway expect the typical protests from the usual suspects with no context of how few crimes USFJ personnel do commit in Japan. [...]

• U.S. Sailor Sought Over Taxi Murder / Okinawans Rally Against American Military : Japan Probe
  3:44 pm on March 24th, 2008 18

  [...] http://rokdrop.com/2008/02/20/statistics-for-recent-usfj-crime-rate-on-okinawa-released/ Reply to this comment Comment by Klauscore 2008-03-24 14:27:42 [...]

• ROK Drop — Keeping the USFK Gravy Train Rolling Since 1950.
  10:26 am on April 1st, 2008 19

  [...] Statistics for Recent USFJ Crime Rate on Okinawa Released [...]

• TK
  8:24 am on April 6th, 2008 20

  So are you saying that, crimes committed by servicemen shouldn’t be publicized if the general public has a higher crime rate? If you follow that logic, the case of a sniper who killed an unarmed Iraqi civilian shouldn’t have caught nationwide attention because Iraq is an unsafe place ???
  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23086927/

  Don’t you see the flaw in your logic???

  Any crime committed by a foreign force is going to draw attention no matter what the surrounding situation is.

• GI Korea
  8:48 am on April 6th, 2008 21

  I never said crimes committed by US servicemembers shouldn’t be publicized. Find one instance where I said that. The only logic flaw here is your own.

  The current Yokosuka murder case should clearly be news, but when a servicemember has a domestic dispute with his Japanese wife should that make headlines? In Korea a soldier brushed a woman’s shoulder with his car mirror and that made headlines.

  When all these minor incidents continuously make headlines that creates the perception of out of control US military crime when the statistics clearly show that is not true.

• TK
  10:18 am on April 6th, 2008 22

  GI:
  When it comes to the topic of what makes the headlines, it’s not just about the severity of the crime but also who committed the act.

  Look at Paris Hilton’s DUI case or Eliot Spitzer’s prostitution case; the crime itself is defiantly not worth the headline. (Believe me, I hate those extensive coverage that takes away airtime which should have been spent for much more important issues.)
  It must be tough to be in such a spot, but looking at those cases you’ve cited, servicemen stationed overseas seem to be in the celebrity / government official / important person category.

  It is unfair, but that’s the nature of the media.

• Meeguk
  12:52 pm on April 6th, 2008 23

  Why doesn’t the US forces just go home?

  They could protect the border of the US instead of wasting tax payer money in Japan. Oh, I know why, that makes sense and puts the true Americans interests first.

• shattered
  5:43 pm on April 6th, 2008 24

  Major Michael Brown was a creep. So who knows the real story.

  hxxp://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=31293&archive=true

  Michael J. Brown, 42, was arrested at his brother’s home in Laurel, Md., on a charge he kidnapped an 18-year-old high school student from a flea market in Milton, W. Va.

• How to convince non-Americans to not hate the CAPTAIN AMERICA movie? - Page 8 - NEWSARAMA
  12:52 pm on May 12th, 2008 25

  [...] US troops(etc.) commit (way) less crime than native Okinawans (found in one search on google) http://www.dprkstudies.org/documents/asia015.html http://rokdrop.com/2008/02/20/statis…nawa-released/ [...]

• statistics US military criminal offenses in Germany - Dogpile Web Search
  11:41 am on September 14th, 2008 26

  [...] before you Move Sponsored by: http://www.NeighborhoodScout.com/ • Found on Ads by Google Statistics for Recent USFJ Crime Rate on Okinawa Released Moral offenses: 1 individual; 1 case Other: 20 … their lack of previous psychological or [...]

 

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