US Commander Says Troops More Law-Abiding Than Locals

[Mulboyne]

AFP: US troops in Japan commit less crimes than locals
US forces in Japan commit half as many serious crimes on average as the general public, their commander said Tuesday, lamenting a "misperception" about the behaviour of his troops. The US military is "absolutely convinced" that its measures are having an effect, although it is hard to document crimes that have been prevented, said the commander of US forces in Japan, Lieutenant General Edward Rice. The serious crime rate for US service members off their bases is "approximately half" that of the Japanese population, he told reporters. Considering Japan has a low crime rate, "our ability to maintain our rate that is 50 percent less than the general population here is a strong indication that our actions are having an effect," he argued...more...

[Uthark_Runa]

[Guy Incognito]

I wonder if they have conveniently forgotten to factor in ratios here - 40,000 US troops, to the 127,433,494 Japanese population...

[Nama Ebi]

"The serious crime rate for US service members off their bases is "approximately half" that of the Japanese population"

Whoop-dee-doo. It should be zero.

Why can't these thugs do their raping and home invasions where they are supposed to: Iraq.

[kurohinge1]

. . . US forces in Japan commit half as many serious crimes on average as the general public, their commander said Tuesday . . .

So Japan could reduce its "serious" crime rate by more than half by simply making (US) military service compulsory for the locals.

[omae mona]

I wonder if they have conveniently forgotten to factor in ratios here - 40,000 US troops, to the 127,433,494 Japanese population...

I sure hope not. Otherwise it would imply that half the crime in Japan is committed by US service members!

Anyway, while I am sure Lt. Gen. Rice is correct that perceptions are worse than reality, I am not so sure the comparison he's making is meaningful. He set the bar pretty low. Even if the crime rate for US servicemen is only 50% that of locals, isn't that still too high? The crime rate of locals certainly includes the poor & unemployed. The military's supposed to be getting paid, and also be tightly supervised.

I know a bad apple's a bad apple in any culture, and there's not much you can do about it. But I'm not sure that educating the public on the low crime statistics is going to make them feel better. I have a feeling Japanese citizens are going to be unhappy with anything above zero.

[EDIT: I just noticed Nama Ebi basically made the same point above. Sorry for being redundant!]

[Behan]

Does anyone have proportional crime stats? Or can do the math for that? I am curious.

[Mike Oxlong]

What about the time factor? It's like being a driver. If you are in a car 12 hours a day, your accident rate will likely be higher that someone who only drives a bit weekends. Since on average, most American G.I.s are off-base for much less that half of their time on a tour over here, you'd expect the crime rate to be exceptionally low. That it isn't is telling.

[kurohinge1]

Also, there's no definition of "serious crimes" in the article. Is that defined by statute or something, somewhere?

I mean, if you're comparing 10 bicycle thefts to 5 rapes and/or murders, then it's not very impressive.

[Zeth3D]

seriously, what are they thinking by making this comparison?

Japanese people can commit crimes IN JAPAN if they want.

I agree with Nama

[amdg]

seriously, what are they thinking by making this comparison?

Japanese people can commit crimes IN JAPAN if they want.

I agree with Nama

You hear that everyone? Zeth3D has just proclaimed that any Japanese person can kill him while he's in Japan "if they want". No one else can, because that would be against the law, but if you're Japanese then it's open season on Zeth3D.

I understand the sentiment that somehow a foreigner commiting a crime in a foreign land is more reprehensible than a local committing the same crime. I strongly disagree with the sentiment but I can kind of understand how some people might feel that way.

But taking it a step further and saying that locals commiting crimes in their own land is A.O.K., seems ... bizarre and out of touch with reality. I'm sure the cops and the judiciary don't share the same view as you Zeth3D.

[joshuaism]

Does anyone have proportional crime stats? Or can do the math for that? I am curious.

I found some [post=177648]statistics[/post] the last time we discussed the military's fuzzy feel-good crime headlines. Feel free to do the math. Like Omae-san said, there's about 40,000 military members in Japan vs. 127,433,494 Japanese.

[Iraira]

I found some [post=177648]statistics[/post] the last time we discussed the military's fuzzy feel-good crime headlines. Feel free to do the math. Like Omae-san said, there's about 40,000 military members in Japan vs. 127,433,494 Japanese.

Also that's not really a fair comparison, either. The above J-population includes 4 year olds and 95 year olds who really aren't gonna commit a crime worse than shitting on themselves (nice how we come full circle in life).
It really should cover crimes committed by Japanese males between the ages of what....18-45. This assumes that no military females committed a serious crime, if they did, then gotta throw in the J-females.

[Greji]

Also that's not really a fair comparison, either. The above J-population includes 4 year olds and 95 year olds who really aren't gonna commit a crime worse than shitting on themselves (nice how we come full circle in life).
It really should cover crimes committed by Japanese males between the ages of what....18-45. This assumes that no military females committed a serious crime, if they did, then gotta throw in the J-females.

Those facts also include all allegations, not convictions. They even include traffic incidents, along with parking violations.

To make any worthwhile, comparisons, you would need the convictions by offense.

Regardless, when every news outlet in the country covers any minor offense around any base as front page news, the template has been set and we are not going to see the US Forces get any proper coverage.

Yesterday, a 65 year old lady was stabbed by some certified ding-a-ling J-dude in the supermarket my wife goes to two or three times a week and although it got some coverage on TV locally, it basically went un-noticed on a lot of fronts. Now if the perp had been a GI, hey, we'd be talking some real headlines here!

[amdg]

Those facts also include all allegations, not convictions. They even include traffic incidents, along with parking violations.

To make any worthwhile, comparisons, you would need the convictions by offense.

Regardless, when every news outlet in the country covers any minor offense around any base as front page news, the template has been set and we are not going to see the US Forces get any proper coverage.

Yesterday, a 65 year old lady was stabbed by some certified ding-a-ling J-dude in the supermarket my wife goes to two or three times a week and although it got some coverage on TV locally, it basically went un-noticed on a lot of fronts. Now if the perp had been a GI, hey, we'd be talking some real headlines here!

You've also got all the "white collar" crimes which are overwhelmingly represented by J-oyajis.

[joshuaism]

Also that's not really a fair comparison, either. The above J-population includes 4 year olds and 95 year olds who really aren't gonna commit a crime worse than shitting on themselves (nice how we come full circle in life).
It really should cover crimes committed by Japanese males between the ages of what....18-45. This assumes that no military females committed a serious crime, if they did, then gotta throw in the J-females.

I might be wrong but I believe that the 40,000 number is not just military members, but also American civilians employed on base and all dependents as well. Of course there probably is a larger percentage of males aged 18-45 on military bases than in the general population, and young adult males are more likely to be criminal offenders, so that might skew the statistics. Obviously, you would need to massage your numbers... take into account the demographics of criminals and weight the number of offenses accordingly... might need to exclude crimes committed by racial minorities since Japan has none (or doesn't recognize that they do)...

No doubt, with some work you could prove that the General is incorrect to state that military crime rates are half that of the population of Japan, but that in fact military crime in Japan is non-existent (virtually).

[MeinJapanLongTime]

Don't forget the fact that that 40,000 number is not "fixed." A good chunk of those folks rotate back to the states and fresh personnel come in every 2 to 3 years. So, you need some aggregate numbers. It's 40,000 today, but when you look at a 10 year period, you need to factor the rotations in. That 40,000 becomes 55,000 after a year, 70,000 after 2 years, 85,000 after 3 years, and so on. Granted, some folks like me stay a long time, but the majority rotate.

[amdg]

Don't forget the fact that that 40,000 number is not "fixed." A good chunk of those folks rotate back to the states and fresh personnel come in every 2 to 3 years. So, you need some aggregate numbers. It's 40,000 today, but when you look at a 10 year period, you need to factor the rotations in. That 40,000 becomes 55,000 after a year, 70,000 after 2 years, 85,000 after 3 years, and so on. Granted, some folks like me stay a long time, but the majority rotate.

That's an interesting factor that I hadn't though of. It does lend towards the exculpation of the US military, because fresh newbies are being brought in every 2 to 3 years. Which means that, although the absolute number of servicemen may remain more or less constant, the individuals are changing all the time so the level of J-experience in the US military is forever remaining at a low level.

but on the other hand I couldn't see the average Japanese being mollified in the least by this fact. It's still US forces committing crimes in Japan.

[joshuaism]

Don't forget the fact that that 40,000 number is not "fixed." A good chunk of those folks rotate back to the states and fresh personnel come in every 2 to 3 years. So, you need some aggregate numbers. It's 40,000 today, but when you look at a 10 year period, you need to factor the rotations in. That 40,000 becomes 55,000 after a year, 70,000 after 2 years, 85,000 after 3 years, and so on. Granted, some folks like me stay a long time, but the majority rotate.

I don't think personnel rotations are so important in these figures. We aren't considering the number of criminals in a population, we are looking at criminal acts vs. population, you aren't really considering the individual people within that population or the individuals that commit crimes (and don't forget, some criminals commit more than one crime meaning one individual could get counted multiple times). Individuals are in a constant state of flux with deaths, births, and migration, but the population remains constant. The death rate, birth rate, and migrations do not factor in at all, despite the fact that these numbers mean that over any period of time, more people have lived in an area than live in the area now. You don't count dead people or people that have moved away as part of that population.

The rotations don't add any more people to the military population, it just gives those individual people artificially short lifespans within that population.

[MeinJapanLongTime]

I don't think personnel rotations are so important in these figures. We aren't considering the number of criminals in a population, we are looking at criminal acts vs. population, you aren't really considering the individual people within that population or the individuals that commit crimes (and don't forget, some criminals commit more than one crime meaning one individual could get counted multiple times). Individuals are in a constant state of flux with deaths, births, and migration, but the population remains constant. The death rate, birth rate, and migrations do not factor in at all, despite the fact that these numbers mean that over any period of time, more people have lived in an area than live in the area now. You don't count dead people or people that have moved away as part of that population.

The rotations don't add any more people to the military population, it just gives those individual people artificially short lifespans within that population.

Well, when folks quote numbers that X number of crimes have been committed over the last decade, I believe it is important to take into account that (and this is a major wag in the numbers) there were perhaps 5 "major" (rape, murder, and such) crimes out of perhaps 400,000 military members that rotated through Japan. That drops the "percentages" significantly.

In a perfect world there would be no crime. No society is perfect, regardless of how much military training and discipline you instill in that group.

If you transplanted 40,000 Japanese businessmen into the US and then monitored them for drunk driving, I wonder what those statistics would look like.

My point here isn't to say one group would do better than the other, simply that it's not a perfect world, and there are idiots in every culture who will break laws and do idiotic crap. You can't weed them all out. The US military tries its best to do so.

How many AFN propaganda commercials does it take to get it through people's heads not to drink and drive?

Apply that same logic to the general populace. How many public service announcements and restrictions on sales and so forth would actually bring drunk driving to zero?

It'll never happen. There are always idiots out there who think they're above the law or "won't be caught."

[omae mona]

Well, when folks quote numbers that X number of crimes have been committed over the last decade, I believe it is important to take into account that (and this is a major wag in the numbers) there were perhaps 5 "major" (rape, murder, and such) crimes out of perhaps 400,000 military members that rotated through Japan. That drops the "percentages" significantly.

What you are calculating is not a meaningful statistic. If you are claiming 400,000 people came through Japan in 10 years, since there are about 40,000 actually in Japan at any given time, then it means the average stay was 1 year. Those people were unable to commit crimes in Japan during 9 out of the 10 years you are measuring, so you've underestimated by a factor of 10.

Say you ship 40,000 criminals to Japan who all commit one crime per year. The correct crime rate is 100%, right? It's measured in crimes per person per annum. Now, say you keep these guys in Japan 9 years and 11 months, but then ship them out and replace them with law abiding citizens for 1 month. Using your calculation, you would claim the crime rate just dropped to 50% for this 10 year period (because out of 80,000 people, only 40,000 committed crimes). In fact, even if you shipped a new set of criminals instead of law abiding citizens, the chance they commit their annual crime during the 1 month they are in Japan is pretty low. So the crime rate will still drop by almost half (maybe 44,000 out of 80,000 would have had a chance to commit crimes).

If you were to cycle 120,000 people in and out during that last month, the crime rate goes down to 25% (40,000 out of 160,000 people) Magic! Cycling people in and out of the country artificially dilutes your statistic, even if they commit just as much crime per year as the people they replaced.

In reality, if you replaced the 40,000 criminals with 40,000 law abiding citizens for 1 month out of 10 years, the correct calculation of the crime rate would go down by less than one percent (1 month out of 120 months), not by 50%.

[Iraira]

What you are calculating is not a meaningful statistic. If you are claiming 400,000 people came through Japan in 10 years, since there are about 40,000 actually in Japan at any given time, then it means the average stay was 1 year. Those people were unable to commit crimes in Japan during 9 out of the 10 years you are measuring, so you've underestimated by a factor of 10.

Say you ship 40,000 criminals to Japan who all commit one crime per year. The correct crime rate is 100%, right? It's measured in crimes per person per annum. Now, say you keep these guys in Japan 9 years and 11 months, but then ship them out and replace them with law abiding citizens for 1 month. Using your calculation, you would claim the crime rate just dropped to 50% for this 10 year period (because out of 80,000 people, only 40,000 committed crimes). In fact, even if you shipped a new set of criminals instead of law abiding citizens, the chance they commit their annual crime during the 1 month they are in Japan is pretty low. So the crime rate will still drop by almost half (maybe 44,000 out of 80,000 would have had a chance to commit crimes).

If you were to cycle 120,000 people in and out during that last month, the crime rate goes down to 25% (40,000 out of 160,000 people) Magic! Cycling people in and out of the country artificially dilutes your statistic, even if they commit just as much crime per year as the people they replaced.

In reality, if you replaced the 40,000 criminals with 40,000 law abiding citizens for 1 month out of 10 years, the correct calculation of the crime rate would go down by less than one percent (1 month out of 120 months), not by 50%.

Plus what is the temporal distribution of crime committed by criminals? Is it a Poisson distribution?

[omae mona]

Plus what is the temporal distribution of crime committed by criminals? Is it a Poisson distribution?

Yes. (ok, I am just making that up). However, a real question is the geographic distribution of crime. Do Americans commit more crime in Japan than they would back home? If you count smelling funny, going into the public o-furo without washing properly first, and not separating trash properly as crimes, then guilty as charged!!

[Iraira]

Yes. (ok, I am just making that up). However, a real question is the geographic distribution of crime. Do Americans commit more crime in Japan than they would back home? If you count smelling funny, going into the public o-furo without washing properly first, and not separating trash properly as crimes, then guilty as charged!!

With the numerous bicycles you have stolen and taken to the chop shop, you are worse than Osama!;)

[MeinJapanLongTime]

What you are calculating is not a meaningful statistic. If you are claiming 400,000 people came through Japan in 10 years, since there are about 40,000 actually in Japan at any given time, then it means the average stay was 1 year. Those people were unable to commit crimes in Japan during 9 out of the 10 years you are measuring, so you've underestimated by a factor of 10.

Say you ship 40,000 criminals to Japan who all commit one crime per year. The correct crime rate is 100%, right? It's measured in crimes per person per annum. Now, say you keep these guys in Japan 9 years and 11 months, but then ship them out and replace them with law abiding citizens for 1 month. Using your calculation, you would claim the crime rate just dropped to 50% for this 10 year period (because out of 80,000 people, only 40,000 committed crimes). In fact, even if you shipped a new set of criminals instead of law abiding citizens, the chance they commit their annual crime during the 1 month they are in Japan is pretty low. So the crime rate will still drop by almost half (maybe 44,000 out of 80,000 would have had a chance to commit crimes).

If you were to cycle 120,000 people in and out during that last month, the crime rate goes down to 25% (40,000 out of 160,000 people) Magic! Cycling people in and out of the country artificially dilutes your statistic, even if they commit just as much crime per year as the people they replaced.

In reality, if you replaced the 40,000 criminals with 40,000 law abiding citizens for 1 month out of 10 years, the correct calculation of the crime rate would go down by less than one percent (1 month out of 120 months), not by 50%.

I believe I stated this in my original post:
"(and this is a major wag in the numbers)" and "drops the percentages significantly"

I made no attempt to use real numbers in any of my statistics and never said by 50% anywhere. I WAGed the 400,000 number and gave no percentage number.

While the number of current military members and civilians in Japan is around 40,000, it has not always been that low. In previous years the numbers have been higher. When you factor in dependents, it takes the numbers even higher. Example, newspaper articles and such regularly quoted numbers around 50,000 less than a decade ago.

You want real numbers? Here are some:



According to this chart, since 1950, there have been 4,000,000 US military personnel through Japan.


The hard numbers:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/troopMarch2005.xls

Source: http://www.heritage.org/research/nationalsecurity/cda04-11.cfm

[MeinJapanLongTime]

Here's a challenge for you:

Find out
1) How many Japanese homeless have been fed by US military personnel over the last 50 years while the Japanese government ignores them?
2) How many orphanages in Japan are regularly and quietly supported by US military units?
3) How many US-Japan Friendship organizations are out there?

All the good things that are done are never advertised. Everytime the one bad apple syndrome comes up and lockdowns are put in place, Japanese businesses that thrive on the US military population suffer--restaurants, shops, and such.

[joshuaism]

Here's a challenge for you:

Find out
1) How many Japanese homeless have been fed by US military personnel over the last 50 years while the Japanese government ignores them?
2) How many orphanages in Japan are regularly and quietly supported by US military units?
3) How many US-Japan Friendship organizations are out there?

All the good things that are done are never advertised. Everytime the one bad apple syndrome comes up and lockdowns are put in place, Japanese businesses that thrive on the US military population suffer--restaurants, shops, and such.

I always thought the military volunteered in orphanages so much because it was the military that filled them up with little unwanted half-lings (no doubt, a product of those US-Japan Friendship organizations).

But for the life of me, I can't understand why the military would feed Japan's homeless.

[Greji]

But for the life of me, I can't understand why the military would feed Japan's homeless.

The military does not do any of these things. People in the military (there are human beings in the military regardless of what the press and other people would have you believe) volunteer their time to collect money, foodstuffs and clothing for homeless and orphans (halfs or otherwise). Sometimes they are able to get assistance in contributions from the military community cooperation programs (government money). But, for the most part it is all volunteer work and contributions from the military members themselves.

I guess you would believe this is a bad thing?

[omae mona]

I made no attempt to use real numbers in any of my statistics and never said by 50% anywhere. I WAGed the 400,000 number and gave no percentage number.

You missed my point. I was using some slanted numbers to show that your statistics methodology (the idea of counting people who are not in Japan) is from planet Pluto. Your math does not measure anything meaningful. It measures the crime rate DIVIDED BY the personnel turnover rate. That calculation is not of any interest to the public, any more than the price of ramen divided by today's temperature multiplied by the number of Uyoku vans that drove by your house today. Would I be correct to assume you've never studied any statistics?

[MeinJapanLongTime]

I took one class way back and by no way am an expert. But you can't really take the number of crimes committed over the decade and use it against a flat number like that either.

The 50,000 here in 1995 are not the same group as the 40,000 here in 2005. You can compare rates at those specific points in time and look at the trend, but that's about it.