More Marines and Navy sailors were tried for rapes, child molestations and other sexual assaults at bases in Japan than at any other U.S. military site in the world.
Computer records of Navy and Marine Corps cases since 1988 show bases in Japan, which have a total of 41,008 personnel, held 169 courts-martial for sexual assaults. That's 66 percent more cases than the No. 2 location, San Diego, which had 102 cases and has 93,792 personnel.
The No. 3 location, Norfolk, Va., had 90 courts-martial cases. Norfolk has 113,004 total personnel.
Sexual assaults by U.S. military personnel have become the focus of international attention after the alleged rape of a 12-year-old Japanese girl on Sept. 4. The girl was heading home from a neighborhood store in northern Okinawa when she was abducted, bound and taken to a deserted beach, where she was beaten and raped, authorities said.
Two Marines and a sailor were charged in the case.
The Navy and Marines aren't the only armed services with a high rate of sexual assault cases in Japan. Among Air Force personnel, Kadena Air Base, Japan, led all but one other installation in the number of people charged withsexual assaults.
Air Force computer records, which included personnel charged but not tried,show that 23 people were charged with sexual assaults at Kadena, near the island of Okinawa. Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas ranks first with 26 cases, but that base has 7,020 military personnel - hundreds more than Kadena,which has 5,984.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base outside of Dayton has even more military personnel, 8,754, but it ranks 32nd with 13 cases.
The computer records do not show how many of the cases involved assaults onJapanese women.
Officials at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C., said they would examine the high rate of sexual assaults committed by American service members.
"I am not quite sure whether we can make any comments on that, but we are going to look into it,'' Japanese Embassy spokesman Tsukasa Uemura said.
Orlando, Fla., attorney Robert Wheelock, who has defended military personnel in Japan, said several factors may explain the numbers.
``Okinawa is one of the biggest staging areas for Marines in the early partof their careers,'' he said. ``That means you have a large population of 18- to 22-year-old kids there - many of them away from home for the first time, feeling their oats, trained to think they're hot stuff just because they're Marines.''
Army Reserve Maj. Kathy Platoni, a clinical psychologist in Centerville, said military personnel overseas often feel liberated from the social structures that had controlled their behavior at home.
``There is often a party atmosphere and an attitude of: `I can act out, andI'm not going to get caught.' That's why they feel free to abuse other humans,'' she said.
Military officials declined to explain the high number of courts-martial inJapan. During a speech in New York on Sept. 27, Defense Secretary William Perry, reacting to the attack on the Japanese girl, said all American militarymust be held accountable for their actions.
``So when any of our military personnel violates the hospitality of our host country, it is not only an action for which that person must be held individually responsible, but it also reflects upon the United States and makes it more difficult for us to perform our important military mission,'' Perry said.
In a series of stories published last week, the Dayton Daily News reported that the U.S. armed services allowed hundreds accused of sex offenses to escape criminal prosecution or go free despite convictions. Many were sent back to civilian life with no criminal record, even though civilians accused of the same kinds of crimes are given criminal records.
The newspaper examined more than 100,000 previously unreleased military computer records as part of the eight-month examination of sexual assaults handled by the military, which has its own criminal justice system.
The Army refused to release computer records on courts-martial, and the newspaper filed a lawsuit against the service in August.
Using the computer records from the other services, the newspaper calculated sexual assault prosecutions at military installations around the world.
Of the 169 courts-martial at Navy and Marine Corps installations in Japan, nearly a third were held in the military's version of misdemeanor court, wherethe maximum sentence is six months - less than that faced by many drunken drivers.
One of those tried in misdemeanor court was a sailor accused in 1991 of what would have been felony charges in civilian criminal court.
The sailor was charged with grabbing a woman's breast, fondling her and pulling down her pants during an attempted rape.
He was found guilty of indecent assault, sentenced to 150 days in jail and given a $1,750 fine and a ``bad conduct discharge'' from the service.
Overall, 107 of the 169 defendants were found guilty of a sexual assault, but only half of the guilty - 54 - got sentences of more than six months.
One Marine got 120 days in jail for having sex with someone younger than 16, a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison. A military record described what the Marine did in 1991 as: ``Carnal knowledge with 15-year-old promiscuous, sexually experienced'' child of a service member.
Another Marine was convicted in January 1995 of rape and got a six-month sentence. The minimum sentence in Ohio on a first conviction of rape is five years.
In six of the 169 cases, a computer search identified the women reporting sexual assaults as Japanese. The computer records, however, did not identify the nationality of most of the alleged victims.
Of the six accused of assaulting Japanese women, three were found guilty ofsexual assaults and got sentences ranging from five to 10 years in prison.
Of the 23 Air Force defendants at Kadena, three were sent to the misdemeanor court. Two of those were charged with indecent assault, and the third was charged with committing indecent acts with a child under the age of 16.
Fewer than half of the defendants in Kadena - 11 of 23 - were found guilty of a sexual assault. Of the guilty, seven were sentenced to more than six months. Two of the guilty got no jail time at all. One was convicted on two counts of rape and got 90 days extra duty but no jail. The the other pleaded guilty to having sex with someone younger than 16.
The three U.S. servicemen indicted Friday in the rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl are most unlucky, compared to many other servicemen charged withsex crimes against minors.
In Okinawa, the incident struck like a match on the paper-thin sensitivity of the public. The revelation exploded into an international incident, shakingJapanese support for the U.S. military outpost on their territory.
The first mistake of the soldiers - if they are guilty - was, of course, tohave assaulted that little girl.
Their second mistake was to have had their case come to light in Okinawa, where, by treaty agreement, they would be tried by a local court.
As a result, the servicemen should be prepared to kiss their freedom goodbye. Those courts mean business. The maximum penalty is life.
The three men can only dream of being tried in a U.S. military court. As the `Military Secrets' report starting in this edition of this newspaper points out, some bases, such as the Charleston Naval Base, do lower the boom on rapists. But in too many instances the military system is an offender's best hope of getting off easy.
In too many cases, the dishonorable are given honorable discharges.
In too many cases, offenders are dealt with in administrative hearings, theequivalent of a misdemeanor court. Several years ago, Marine Cpl. John A. Penrod was accused of trying to rape a 17-year-old girl in Okinawa, but he wasdealt with in an administrative hearing, where the maximum risk is six months behind bars. Cpl. Penrod got off the hook by resigning. His case didn't catch fire with the public the way the current Okinawa case has.
Too many military cases don't seem to catch fire within the Defense Department. Now the light ought to be on the performance of the military justice system as a whole in dealing with sexual offenses. If the risk of serving serious time for sexual assault in the U.S. military isn't going to beas high as the risk in an Okinawa court, it ought to be at least closer to thelevel of American nonmilitary courts.
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