The restriction of USFJ servicemembers will continue through the upcoming weekend and will receive a review on March 3rd.  This restriction is greatly effecting the local economies near the US bases:

Many of the entertainment district’s bars were closed. The only business activity seemed to be a few teenage girls in a clothing store looking over the latest in stateside hip-hop fashions.

At 9 p.m. Saturday at Paddy Mac’s, an Irish pub on Park Avenue, three Okinawans shared a few pints of Guinness and orders of fish and chips and two others drank at the bar. Owner Martin McIntyre sat in a back booth and shook his head.

“This is killing me,” he said. “Any other Saturday there’d be 60 people packed in here, with the regulars watching the football matches on the telly. And there’d be a bunch hanging around outside on the sidewalk.” [Stars & Stripes]

This may be the reason that the USFJ leadership is extending this restriction for so long is to remind Okinawans what their economy would be like without the servicemembers’ business.  As we have seen in the past in Korea, restrictions highly anger the Korean business owners and they will beat down anti-US groups that try to protest outside US military installations that can cause restrictions that effect business. 

Continuing with the subject of Okinawa crime here is a great graphic from Zatoichi that shows the per capita arrest rate for SOFA personnel on Okinawa compared to the general population:

Make sure to check out the site because there are a bunch of other great graphs that compare the SOFA personnel to the general Okinawa population.  Like I mentioned in my prior posting, the crime rate in the 1970’s on Okinawa was out of countrol, but improved greatly going into the 1980’s and continued to improve into the 1990’s.  There was a spike of incidents in 2003 and since then a steep decline however the important thing is that the crimes are remaining below the averages of the general population.  Something else to take into consideration is that US servicemembers are composed of a large population of young, single males which primarily cause the most crime.  Despite this SOFA status personnel are still committing less crime then the general population.