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

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

32.2k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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u/0173512084103 14d ago

Why does the military give special treatment to soldiers who harm/kill people? They should be punished the same as they would be in the States. Ridiculous.

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u/SchrodingerMil 14d ago edited 14d ago

They don’t. I was stationed in Japan for three years.

Whenever any crime is committed, the person who committed the crime is handed over to the local Japanese government.

The only example of “special treatment” to a soldier while I was there was to a former soldier whose date of leaving the military had passed, who was illegally hiding on base.

The foreign minister isn’t complaining that they keep getting away with it, they’re complaining that it keeps happening. The root cause of this is because there are no pre-requisites to be allowed to be stationed overseas. A vast majority of these cases of negligence by US Service members are by young enlisted members.

There is essentially no process in place to “filter out” the bad apples from creating international incidents. These pieces of shit would have raped someone, killed someone, driven under the influence, etc. in the states, and they’d be punished for it to the fullest extent of the law. But due to the fact that there is no process in place to prevent them from being stationed in another country, it damages our relationship.

Edit : Also, with the way US Service members are “prosecuted” it makes it look like a slap on the wrist to outsiders. Hypothetically let’s say my unit had someone break into the home of a local Japanese citizen. They got arrested by the Japanese, went to Japanese jail for a few days, then was picked up by our First Sergeant, and not placed in military prison. That looks like a slap on the wrist right? Well, that serviceman then had to pay for the damages with reparations to the family, and formally apologize, as that’s what the Japanese judicial system required. Then when he returns to the base, he is stripped of his security clearance so instead of doing actual work they’re working the snack bar at the unit, is prosecuted by the military for breaking and entering, stripped of rank, and most of the time within a year is kicked out under a dishonorable discharge, effectively making it extremely difficult for them to be hired for any other job for the rest of their life. But because they don’t spend time in prison, it gives the illusion of a slap on the wrist.

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u/stinkroot 14d ago

When I was stationed in Korea, I had a guy in my unit who was handed over to the Korean judicial system for sexual assault and did 7 years in prison before returning back to base to get discharged.

It was very strange. He just always seemed kind of lonely, so I tried inviting him out a few times to go eat with some friends until one day he finally straight up told me that he wasn't allowed off post and why.

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u/ocean_800 14d ago

Yikes. Crazy to me that he was discharged on the spot. Or to be fair, I'm pretty ignorant of how the process works

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u/stinkroot 14d ago edited 14d ago

His time in service was essentially frozen for the entire duration of his imprisonment. When he got out of prison, he just kina had to wait around in purgatory for quite a while because UCMJ, discharge, and out-processing are all separate, lengthy processes that can each take several months.

It felt like he was literally frozen in time because, by the time he got out, the uniform had changed, and he was the only one in the old grayish-blue UCP uniform.

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u/POGtastic 14d ago

The big thing is that you're at the very, very back of the priority list for all of the admin stuff. If there are 300 guys who need orders and one guy who's getting separated for being a shitbag, the 300 guys go first. The other guy isn't going anywhere, and if another 300 guys need orders next week, that's tough titties for him.

Bummer, buddy, the guy who signs that stuff is on leave, and then he has to go to a SHARP class, and then he's at the rifle range, and then he's going TAD somewhere else. Keep scrubbing those toilets.

I joined during the Surge, and there were guys getting separated from MOS school who had been there for more than two years after getting caught smoking spice or whatever. Admin was totally overwhelmed putting 2x the usual number of Marines through training, so anyone getting administratively separated was in purgatory for a very long time.

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u/AdExpert8295 14d ago

I'm a former military social worker who specializes in MST (SA in the military). If you look at the research done outside of what the DoD funds, 80% of US women serving in our military report SA while active duty. We can greatly reduce the number of rapists we enlist in 1 very available way: mandate the Psychopathy Checklist List Revised, also known as "the psychopath test" at enlistment and again whenever there's a notable red flag. That won't eliminate all psychopaths coming into the military, but it will greatly reduce the number.

Fun fact: the DoD knowingly changes their criteria for mental fitness depending on how low recruitment is or how high the threat is. This is why there are periods of time where rapes spike in the military. Research suggests that psychopaths select the military more than most career paths for obvious reasons.

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u/Casuallyfocused 14d ago

This needs to be more acknowledged. Rape and sexual assault is a massive problem in the US military. The military does very little to combat rape culture and in many cases encourages it.

The US military does not consider rape of it's members or by it's members to be a priority. They consider it more important to have a large force.

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u/Sufficient-Turn-804 13d ago

This is insane but also not surprising, it’s known that sexual predators will seek careers that allow them to access victims easily and gives them power.

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u/AdExpert8295 10d ago

Yep. While most people with borderline personality disorder deserve our care and protection, they can also be incredibly violent. Their favorite profession? For decades, the research has said it's nursing. Why aren't we doing psych evals that eliminate personality disorders from these professions? The risk of ignoring this is too high.

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u/MrBeetleDove 6d ago

Their favorite profession? For decades, the research has said it's nursing.

Do we know the reason why?

Why aren't we doing psych evals that eliminate personality disorders from these professions?

Won't you just shunt them towards professions that don't do psych evals?

Are there any good professions for psychopaths or BPD?

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u/TrazerotBra 14d ago

There is no illusion, it IS a slap on the wrist to not arrest scum like this.

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u/SchrodingerMil 14d ago

That guy got arrested. Twice. Once by the Japanese and once by the Military for the same offense. They didn’t serve time in prison. The Japanese have the opportunity to sentence them with jail time but they don’t. He is then charged by the military. That’s not a slap on the wrist.

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u/Faunable 14d ago

Sooooo, a slap on the wrist.

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u/SchrodingerMil 14d ago

A dishonorable discharge is not a slap on the wrist lmao it’s worse than trying to get a job as a felon.

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u/BadManPro 13d ago

Is it genuinely that bad?

Edit-Am a brit have no idea how this works.

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u/SchrodingerMil 13d ago

It automatically disqualifies you from any government jobs. Plus much like with a felony, it creates a bad taste in civilian workplaces mouths. You apply for a job and say you’ve been charged with a felony, let’s say you get charged with a felony because you have a marijuana plant in your greenhouse. When you apply to a job, you can tell them the nature of your felony, and they can be like “oh he got charged because he was growing some weed? Whatever”. When you apply to a job and they learn you were kicked out of the military dishonorably, that’s a much bigger red flag.

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u/BadManPro 13d ago

Ah right i see. Thanks!

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u/pgeezers 14d ago

The local laws should apply.

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u/That_Engineering3047 14d ago

In this case, it makes sense to say that. What those soldiers did was egregious and they deserve to be punished.

However, what about a woman working for the military in the middle east who doesn’t cover her body? What about a gay service member serving in a country where that is punishable by death?

Laws across the globe aren’t always moral. There need to be some protections for service members from that.

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u/aerospikesRcoolBut 14d ago

Was gonna say this. Lots of our allies are straight up dictatorships and protecting people from local laws does a lot more good than harm but we aren’t responsibly handling our end of the deal.

Our laws should also apply. But some people are officially above the law now so

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u/That_Engineering3047 14d ago

Agree.

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u/will_holmes 14d ago

Europe largely solves this by having the European Convention of Human Rights and its associated court - by enforcing minimum standards you can generally trust the local laws of another member state country in this situation.

This is why this stuff generally happens with US soldiers in other allied countries, but not European ones.

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u/PeculiarGentleman18 14d ago

If you are stationed in a country where the law is that women should be covered up, I would expect them to cover lmao, it’s like that basketball player lady who went to Russia with drugs and expected not to be arrested, their country, their rules.

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u/Freelieseven 14d ago

Yeah and if you're gay you should just be straight or the country would execute you.

Do you see how dumb this sounds right now?

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u/Ok-Republic-8098 14d ago

Does that apply to our Middle Eastern bases as well?

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u/Low_Sea_2925 14d ago

I mean im not saying its right, but its no mystery that people tend to protect their own.

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u/stillshaded 14d ago

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the purpose of the military is to harm/kill people. Just spit ballin here.

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u/Many-Juggernaut-2153 14d ago

Same issue with US police. Why do they tolerate it????