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U.S. Teens Arrested For Robbing Taxis In Okinawa

Yet another story of U.S. military-related crime has made national headlines:

OKINAWA — Police served fresh arrest warrants on Friday, accusing two teenage sons of U.S. servicemen stationed here of robbing a taxi driver, investigators said.

The two boys — the 15-year-old son of a U.S. Marine and the 16-year-old son of a U.S. airman — are accused of robbery and inflicting bodily injury for allegedly robbing a taxi and injuring its driver in Okinawa. The teenage suspects, already under arrest in a separate theft case, have admitted to having been involved in the violent robbery.

Moreover, prefectural police suspect a 21-year-old airman and two 19-year-old sons of servicemen were also involved in the incident.

The two boys were arrested earlier this month for theft after allegedly stealing a box containing about 5,400 yen in cash from a taxi as they were getting out of the vehicle in Okinawa on the night of March 16.

In the new robbery case, they stopped a taxi in Okinawa in the early hours of March 16, hit its 55-year-old driver and made off with a box containing about 8,000 yen in cash, according to prefectural police. The taxi driver sustained light injuries.

23 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - April 4, 2008 at 5:51 pm

Categories: Foreigners in Japan Tags: crime, international, japan, japanese, military, news, okinawa, us

http://bonesworld-gooch.blogspot.com/ Bonesdog

Hoo boy. Their dads are screwed, big time. I’ve seen this happen before, and it isn’t pretty to watch a man lose his retirement for something the fruit of his loins did.
Level3

So, is every crime involving gaijin in Okinawa going to be top news from now on?

It’s back to the old problem.
Are gaijin committing crimes at a statistically significant higher rate than Japanese?
But can you even tell, since gaijin crimes are probably more likely to be reported (especially in Okinawa), and the suspects sought after by police, and suspects easier to find and be caught, than Japanese criminals. And how much do those biases affect the stats?
And how much does the media bias to report these stories more than Japanese crimes bias public perception?

Dakk

QUICK! PULL OUT THE GAIJIN-CARD.

Poor, poor foreign criminals are being persecuted. How dare they?

hoihoi

It is rare for the Japanese to do the crime in the foreign country.

Why do they do the crime in the foreign country?

Brian B

What? Have you ever heard of Yakuza?

TK

>Level3
There is a bias, but part of this is against crimes committed by people in certain occupations. For example, if you follow the news in Japan, you see a lot of incidents involving school teachers. But it’s not that school teachers commit more crimes, but they are held at higher standards than some average person. US servicemen also fit into the “higher standard” category, as since they are “supposed” to be representing US in a foreign country.

http://hobbyjapan.blogspot.com/ Timotei

There is alot going on now between the U.S and Okinawa. Can’t the US just pull back, these kinda things aren’t suppose to happen.

But, I guess it somehow show the true nature of a couple of young guys from the state.
…

Don’t you think Japanese in general are taking lightly the crimes committed by GIs or other foreign criminals?

Brian B

No, protesting a whole group leave, due to the actions of one, or a few, is not light.

kenji

in a homogeneous society…what do you expect? foreigners stand out, they’re the minority, of course this is gonna happen. why do you think crimes focus more on mexican and blacks in the US? becuase they’re minorities in a mostly white america. so i would suggest you people not bash on the japanese over this kinda stuff.

Brian B

I bash both and think it’s sick and disgusting that the media does this to get their agenda across.

Underthinker

Japan should just start criminally profiling. Even in the U.S. it is not against the law to CRIMINALLY profile, even if it takes race into account.

Japan can start looking at the specific break downs of which foreigners are committing violent crimes and then move to bar anyone falling into that profile from entering the country under any circumstances.

If Japan still has problems with foreign crime then can expand the program. Then when they get rid of all foreigners there will be no more crimes committed in Japan. Right….right?

Brian B

You mean ban people coming from a country, which causes the most crime in Japan? I hate to break it to you…police check people in Japan all the time, based on race. I was even checked for NO reason, by Japanese police, since I didn’t look Japanese.

http://www.rokdrop.com GI Korea

USFJ servicemembers and their families are committing crime at a lower proportion then the general Okinawa population

http://rokdrop.com/2008/02/20/statistics-for-recent-usfj-crime-rate-on-okinawa-released/

Minors of USFJ servicemembers as you can read in the linked article are an increasing problem with dependents approaching almost the same number of servicemembers arrested.

…

Great excuse (referring to comment above)…
Zaboss

How many japanese commit such crimes in USA ?
Aekutopia

GI Korea, I almost laugh to see you always enthusiastically come here to defend those wrong-behaved servicemembers. Your statistic proof are pointless. Everyone know any people on earth did more crimes than foreigners in his/her own country. You have to compare the crime rate between “American did crime in Japan” and “Japanese did crime in US.”, that would be more make sense. And I’m pretty sure (without any proof) that Japanese did much less crimes than American did in this context.

http://www.japaneconomynews.com/ Ken

And I’m pretty sure (without any proof) that Japanese did much less crimes than American did in this context.

I’d like to see the proof. I do assume you’re right here, but it’s hard to make the claim without proof.

Brian B

Notice a pattern here? All of these charges, that I’ve read on this site, come from Okinawa.

the overthinker

Yokosuka is not in Okinawa.

http://www.rokdrop.com GI Korea

The statistics are not pointless or an excuse but a fact. Per capita the SOFA status holders on Okinawa commit less crime then the general population. The stats I crunched come straight from the Okinawa Prefecture website. This incident will show the SOFA process works, the sailor will be tried and go to jail for a long time according to Japanese law.

I haven’t had time to crunch USFJ wide stats yet but for those looking for USFJ wide crime statistics here is a Stars & Stripes article about them:

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59767&archive=true

This article shows the low percentage of crime committed in Japan by USFJ servicemembers.

The perception of out control crime in USFJ is because of the media headlining every single incident. A Marine had a domestic dispute with his Japanese wife on Okinawa and that made headlines. If every incident involving a Japanese citizen was headlined in the US media then people in the US would have a very different view of Japanese nationals living in America.

Also comparing stats of Japanese civilians living in America is not valid because of the demographics. Take 50,000 mostly young Japanese men who mostly cannot speak English and station them in Los Angeles and see if they commit no crime because that is what is being expected of US servicemembers in Japan.

What I find interesting is that foreigners in Japan make up about 1% of the population but foreigners on average commit about 2-3% of the crime according to this Asia Times article:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/FK13Dh01.html

This is higher then the US military percentage of crime in Japan. Obviously foreigners living in Japan are a bigger crime problem for the country then the US military.

klauscore

It would be fair to add to these statistics that they are about the US military personal’s crimes committed under Japanese jurisdiction. Crimes committed on base are not included (are there no fights, thefts..?). Many of them live most of their lives on base and interact little with Japanese society. The crimes in the stats are committed during these limited interactions. How much total crime (on + off base) SOFA status holder actually commit is unclear to me.

Of course, on-base crime does not worry the Japanese, and I completely agree with your argument about the demographics.

I disagree, however, with your explanation about the reasons for the extra attention these crimes get (media hysteria). All of my Okinawan friends regard the US military as quite unwelcome “guests”. The soldiers stationed here are representatives of an aggressive foreign military power which takes up a significant portion of the island (some of the nicest spots) and runs extremely noisy and dangerous (crashed in the city) aircraft from there. There are plans to build a new airstrip in what should be a natural preserve. They pay no car tax and water fees, and getting drunk and yelling “genki desch ka!!!” at random women does not exactly build sympathies either.

If on top of that crimes are committed, it is clear that the Okinawans’ patience is exhausted.

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U.S. Teens Arrested For Robbing Taxis In Okinawa

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