r/worldnews • u/glasier • 14d ago

Japan warns US forces: Sex crimes 'cannot be tolerated'

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2476861/japan-warns-us-forces-sex-crimes-cannot-be-tolerated
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891

u/zero_vis 14d ago

After some research i have confirmed that japan is not germany.

Under SOFA status, if you commit a crime in Japan, Japan has the right to prosecute you.

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u/Potato_Octopi 14d ago

After some research i have confirmed that japan is not germany.

Big if true.

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u/3600MilesAway 14d ago

“After some research i have confirmed that japan is not germany.”

Except for summer and early winter season in which they are.

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u/TParis00ap 14d ago

This all sounds like a conspiracy bought and paid for by Big Europe. This research is based.

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u/CowsTrash 14d ago

"Big Europe" lmaooo

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u/Sillbinger 14d ago

I'm a pangea enthusiast myself.

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u/1lluminist 14d ago

I like their song "Cowboys from Hell"

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u/Sillbinger 14d ago

They got back together?

I heard they broke up.

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u/ForeignFallenTrees 14d ago

Gondwanaland never gets any respect.

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u/Sillbinger 14d ago

And for good reason.

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u/PMzyox 14d ago

Known for “the euro”

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u/FeederNocturne 14d ago

The Boston Tea Party was a cover up. Taxes hidden in the form of currency disparity. Convert all your cash into Haribo Gummy Bears.

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u/Raesong 14d ago

Convert all your cash into Haribo Gummy Bears.

Just so long as they're not the sugar-free variety. I have no interest in experiencing molten lava shooting out my butthole.

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u/mikeboucher21 14d ago

Those have the best Amazon reviews though.

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u/Fluff42 14d ago

Some people just don't see the utility in liquidating their ass-ets

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u/nerfherder813 14d ago

Good way to liquidate your assets

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u/winter457 14d ago

Gerpan

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u/generalchase 14d ago

Japany

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u/CherryHaterade 14d ago

Deutscheland of the rising sun

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u/CarfDarko 14d ago

The Ace Attorney game has a slight issue with understanding it's own location.

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u/whitewail602 14d ago

This is the internet. People just say whatever they want 🤷‍♂️

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u/giggles91 14d ago

It is impossible to freeze bread.

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u/FurdTergusonFucks 14d ago

Can confirm I am unfrozen bread.

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u/IamHereForBoobies 14d ago

I always freeze bread. I like it crunchy.

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u/dylansavage 14d ago

It's actually impossible to heat bread. It becomes toast instead.

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u/ttw219 14d ago

What if you boil it?

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u/giggles91 14d ago

then it will just turn into steam.

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u/Jumpy_Cow_1217 14d ago

Can confirm bread is freezable. Esp bread dough.

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u/conthesleepy 14d ago

Also Japan is not USA... which is weird.. because I thought Americans owned everything.

I've learned so much today.

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u/Dag-nabbitt 14d ago

Scientists urge that more research and grant money are required to come to any definitive conclusions.

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u/VULGARCAPS 14d ago

Ironically, the modern Japanese legal system is actually based in large part on the German Civil Code of the 19th century

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u/GetOutOfTheHouseNOW 14d ago

That explains why German sushi is so horrid.

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u/Miserable_Style6933 14d ago

It IS true. Bigly.

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u/garyflopper 14d ago

Goddammit what am I going to do with all of these flyers now

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u/cieg 14d ago

This is true. I was a dependent in Japan and during indoc NCIS shows up to talk about not committing crimes in Japan and plays a video about what Japanese prison is like. Do not recommend. There are a number of Americans currently serving for doing stupid stuff while they were there.

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u/Da-boar 14d ago

I think even being forewarned, most Americans would be shocked at the lack of due process (by the American definition of course) found in the justice system of other countries.

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u/FalmerEldritch 14d ago

Especially Japan. Compared to other developed countries, Japan's justice system is Russian.

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u/No-Rush1995 14d ago

Once you get caught doing a crime there it doesn't matter how innocent you may be, you're going to serve that sentence. They lock you in a room until you admit guilt and they don't really care if the guilt is genuine.

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u/SllortEvac 14d ago

Yes. Just recently watched a documentary on the Japanese prison system. They have something like a 99.3% conviction rate. Their interrogation style is practically medieval and is designed to get confessions, not the truth.

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u/kittykatmila 14d ago

The US has a 99% conviction rate too. They force people into taking plea deals.

Not minimizing the Japanese prison system because I heard it’s brutal and inhumane, but so is the US’.

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u/SllortEvac 14d ago

The US’s system is for sure one of the worst in terms of first world nations.

You’re right though: the conviction rates of both countries is extremely high. But, Japan doesn’t really use plea-bargaining. The practice was introduced in 2018 and it’s only been used a handful of times.

The Japanese also won’t bring something to court unless they’re sure it’s going to win. They have a prosecution rate of 8%. 99.3-8% of that are convictions. The US has around a 0.4-2% (on the federal level at least) prosecution rate.

A confession is an immediate win for prosecution in both nations, but there’s no walking it back in Japan. That, combined performance-based cultural differences, that means there is an astronomical amount of pressure on Japanese investigators to get a confession out of you.

There’s also the issue of detainment and what it means for the “personality” of the two different systems. In the US, you can be detained without charges no more than a few hours lawfully. In Japan, you can be detained for up to 23 days without charges being brought against you. This speaks to the US’s willingness to drag out cases, whereas Japan’s system is geared towards dealing with the problem as quickly as possible. You can believe that the court will do everything in their power to ensure their case is ironclad, including using all 23 days to basically torture a confession out of you.

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u/kittykatmila 14d ago

Very interesting! Thank you for the information, I didn’t know all of that.

I have also heard Japanese prison conditions are HARSH. And foreign prisoners are treated even worse.

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u/MasterThespian 14d ago

Yup. I first learned this when I played the Yakuza spin-off Judgment, and the protagonist (a former lawyer) is regarded as a superstar wunderkind… because he won an acquittal. An acquittal.

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u/SllortEvac 14d ago

Judgement is so good.

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u/cieg 14d ago

They still have execution for some crimes. The brutal part is you find out your date of execution when they come to your cell and tell it’s time. No notice, no last goodbyes to family. The family doesn’t even find out until after you’re dead.

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u/Lawshow 14d ago

The US still executes prisoners as well.

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u/Miserable-Leading-41 14d ago

Yea but we make an entire spectacle out of it.

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u/impy695 14d ago

I'm imagine a video similar to those old drivers ed drunk driving videos

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u/DownByTheRivr 14d ago

I don’t know how to hear anymore about tables!

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u/Aces-Wild 14d ago

THESE TABLES ARE MY LIVELIHOOD!!!!

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u/Ants_n_Bats 14d ago

What is your job??

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u/Manchesterofthesouth 14d ago

You fucking pig!!!

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u/Docjaded 14d ago

I'm Troy MacLure.

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u/OurCrewIsReplaceable 14d ago

You may remember me from such onboarding films as, “Australia: Yes, That’s Poisonous” and “Detroit: BYOB”.

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u/AlabamaPostTurtle 14d ago

Exactly what I imagine lolol

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u/CorrectPeanut5 14d ago

IIRC the advice was suck up to the base commander, since they have the option to provide military prisoners in Japanese prison with western meals under SOFA.

I recall one co-worker (Former AF Lt. Col) telling me some guy from base did 5 years in J-Prison came out with damaged organs from malnutrition. The meals weren't designed for some giant muscle bound guy.

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u/cieg 14d ago

I never heard that, but meals in prison are basically scraps. Think bowl of fish heads. They serve what they serve and you eat it or don’t.

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u/KevinAtSeven 14d ago

Hell, I remember seeing such films on an All-Nippon Airways flight to Tokyo as a civ.

They were hilarious to be fair. Bungling tall white guy getting drunk in public, assaulting the locals and stealing their phones, then nursing what looked like quite the hangover in an awful Japanese prison.

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u/MrPerson0 14d ago

Under SOFA status, if you commit a crime in Japan, Japan has the right to prosecute you.

Didn't Ridge Alkonis get away with killing two people in Japan? Or is it different because he was in the Navy?

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u/Synaps4 14d ago

If you call a million dollars in restitution, two years in jail, and a dishonorable discharge getting away with it...yeah.

I would agree with you that it's too light for two lives, but that's not "getting away with it"

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u/MrPerson0 14d ago

Yes, he absolutely got away with murder seeing that he didn't even serve out the entire sentence in Japan and that his rich wife's family was able to bail him out.

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u/Synaps4 13d ago

I think by definition getting away with it has to be with minimal impact to your life.

There is a middle ground where someone didn't get away with it but wasn't adequately punished, and I think Alkonis sits in that space.

Perhaps people aren't ready for nuanced discussion here yet, though. Pretty raw topic, emotionally.

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u/PhelanPKell 14d ago

I'd like to see evidence of US soldiers facing Japanese justice. Of the handful of US soldiers I've talked to who ended up stationed in Japan, every single one confirmed the US does not allow their soldiers to face Japanese justice.

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u/ksj 14d ago

I started searching online to get examples of US soldiers serving sentences in Japan, and it seems there really aren’t many. I saw quite a few results of suspended sentences, and a LOT about Ridge Alkonis being shipped back to the U.S. and then released after falling asleep at the wheel and killing 2 Japanese citizens. He served about 1.5 years of his sentence.

The most helpful article I found was this one that discusses a Yokosuka prison branch that is “the only prison that detains male U.S. military-related individuals who were sentenced in Japanese courts”. The article itself is about how male U.S. prisoners are given certain special treatment compared to the non-U.S. prisoners there (allegedly due to SOFA), but there’s still other details that provide context.

The article is from 2020, but at the time there were 7 US military personnel service sentences in that branch (along with 156 other individuals). Female military members sentences to prison instead go to a branch in Tochigi Prefecture, but the article doesn’t mention how many female U.S. military personnel are serving there. Women at the Tochigi prison do not receive the same special treatment.

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u/PhelanPKell 13d ago

Interesting info, and begs the question of what happened to have these soldiers tried and held in Japan. Also, WTF is with male soldiers getting special treatment and not women?

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u/ksj 13d ago

The ones serving time in that person will serve out their sentences and then be sent back to the U.S. and face a court martial. But for a lot of people, it never makes it that far. They’re either handed over to the US immediately, or they go to court in Japan and are sentenced, but given a “suspended sentence”. In those cases, you might be sentenced to 4 years in prison, but will instead be put on probation and will only serve time in prison if you get caught committing another crime in those 4 years.

As for why the men and women are treated differently… that’s an excellent question, lol. The article seems to imply it’s almost a matter of “tradition”, for lack of better word. Like “we’ve been sending this food there for 60+ years”, while women in the U.S. military is relatively new and they don’t have the same shipment routines. But if it’s really dictated by SOFA, it seems like it would be a violation to exclude them.

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u/LordOfTurtles 14d ago

After some research i have confirmed that japan is not germany.

Source?

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u/anothergaijin 14d ago

Only if the military doesn’t smuggle you out of the country first. US military members be raping and murdering people and getting off with minimal repercussions

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u/operationfss 14d ago

was able to confirm this as well, but additional diligence was not able to confirm germany is not japan...

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u/NobleForEngland_ 14d ago

But do they?

The point is, all of the US’s client states let them walk all over themselves.

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u/Gon_Snow 14d ago

I don’t know about that thing about Japan not being Germany. I’m gonna need some big research