Yes, but only when they are under Japanese jurisdiction, which, while they are on base, they are not.

Japan and the US have “Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs)” to ensure that military members abide by host nation laws. GIs are also subject to the UCMJ (unified code of military justice.) They must obey all Japanese laws like any other citizen and are subject to prosecution from Japan AND the US. GIs have extra incentive to play by the rules, because breaking the law costs them a whole lot more than a fine or jail time.

Idiots and crooks live everywhere. Crime happens, cant be eliminated, only minimized.

A little bit of a tangent, the only consolation I would suggest is that the Army and Marines would stop recruiting people with questionable or unstable histories and exacerbating it with war experiences from the middle east. it tends to make unstable people that much more crazy.

In any case, the study in the 1990s did compare crimes on and off bases in Okinawa and mainland Japan with crimes on and off military bases in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere. The crime rate for Japan, including rape, was the highest by a long shot.

Society as a whole does not have a majority of 18-24 year old males of middle- or lower- middle-class backgrounds who are being trained to be professional fighters, and are typically isolated from a significant number of woman, parents, or other people who would have a neutralizing effect on their more aggressive behaviors.

Because of these factors, you must make extraordinary measures to clamp down on crime, but to compare them to “society as a whole” is like saying the people in your town get into less fights proportionately than the local rugby team.

You should compare the base in Okinawa to bases in other countries, including the US, to see if there is a problem there beyond the problems you ordinarily find on military bases.

Somewhat misleading. The crime rate for the military population does not include crimes committed on base, where members of the military spend most of their time. A study in the 1990s showed that on-base crime rates were very high indeed – much higher than crime rates in broader American society. The worst crime rates were on bases in Japan. It is simply ridiculous to claim that U.S. soldiers ‘only cause half the crime as regular Okinawans’, when for more than half of the time they are not, jurisdictionally speaking, ‘in’ Okinawa.

Also, you have to bear in mind that if the crime is not serious, the Japanese police have no power if the offender is a U.S. serviceman who makes it back to base. Thus you get fewer Okinawans reporting crime because they do not have much faith in the police’s ability to do their job. Even in the case of serious crimes, the U.S. authorities only have to show appropriate “consideration” to the Japanese police, whatever that means.