THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
April 12, 2025 at 15:52 JST
Bars and other establishments line the street extending from the main entrance to U.S. Kadena Air Base in Okinawa city. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
NAHA--A joint patrol involving Okinawa prefectural police and the U.S. military is to be mounted in the entertainment district of Okinawa city near the U.S. Kadena Air Base following a series of high-profile sexual assaults involving drunken American personnel.
The Okinawa city government announced April 11 that the patrol would be held over a period of four hours from 10 p.m. on April 18.
Officials from other agencies, such as the Okinawa city and prefectural governments, the local office of the Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry’s Okinawa Defense Bureau and local neighborhood associations, will also take part.
Sexual assault cases in Okinawa involving U.S. military personnel have been on the increase since last June. In 2024, the Okinawa prefectural police detained four individuals, although one case did not lead to an indictment. The detention figure was the largest in a decade.
The joint patrol will be the first since 1974. The prefectural police and prefectural assembly have been cautious about staging patrols due to concerns about the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement, which states that if officials of the two sides are at a crime scene, the U.S. military has jurisdiction over the U.S. suspect.
A high-ranking prefectural police official dismissed the idea that there could be an infringement of the right to investigate because the focus of the joint patrol would be to raise crime prevention awareness around the entertainment district.
The Okinawa city government and local police have conducted awareness campaigns in the past.
The city government plans to continue the joint patrols after April 18 but has not decided on dates yet.
Joint patrols have been held in the past in Misawa, Aomori Prefecture, and Sasebo in Nagasaki Prefecture, according to the government.
(This article was written by Kazufumi Kaneko and Satsuki Tanahashi.)
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