Thursday, March 29, 2001

By Jim Lea, Stars and Stripes

SEOUL — Serious crimes committed by U.S. Forces Korea personnel have dropped by more than 88 percent in the last 25 years, recently released figures show.

The figures, released last week by USFK officials, show that serious crimes — homicide, rape and arson — fell from 67 in 1976 to eight in 2000.

Rates of other crimes also have fallen over the same time period, including drug cases, which fell from 265 cases in 1976 to five cases last year.

Over the same time frame, crimes within the Korean community have dramatically increased.

A recent Justice Ministry white paper revealed that crimes committed by South Koreans increased 560 percent between 1970 and last year. Homicide, rape and arson in the Korean community rose 460 percent over the same period, while drug offenses increased from 4,200 in 1990 to 10,600 in 1999.

"We used 1976 as the base year for our comparison because the (USFK) population has been fairly constant at about 70,000 since then," said Col. John P. Ley Jr., USFK and 8th Army judge advocate. "In 1976, the overall crime figure in USFK was 2,148. It was 1,422 in 1986 and 731 last year."

Based on the 70,000 population figure, he said, the percentage of USFK people who committed crimes over the last 25 years "always has been very small," he said. "It was 3 percent in 1976, 2 percent in 1986 and 1 percent in 2000."

But, he added, the percentages actually are smaller than that.

"The crimes we report to the Korean government include traffic accidents, which generally aren’t included in crime rates in the United States. They are in Korea, though," he said. "When you subtract traffic accidents from the overall figure, the percentage of USFK people committing crimes in 1976 was 1.8. It was nine-tenths of (one) percent in 1986 and one-third of (one) percent last year.

"Any city in the United States would be thrilled to have (crime) statistics like we have," he said.

USFK will not be required to report traffic accidents to the Korean government as long as the people involved have proper and adequate insurance once the new Status of Forces Agreement takes effect April 2, Ley said.

Col. Samuel Taylor, USFK public affairs officer, said one reason crime is down is that "commanders are doing a good job of telling soldiers the importance of representing our country in the way it should be represented and warning them of the types of things that can get them in trouble."

But, "our leaders are not just lecturing. They’re doing everything possible to provide soldiers alternatives to keep them out of trouble," Taylor said. "We have community activities centers, cybercafes and other facilities that give soldiers opportunities to do things besides just drinking and carousing."

The USFK crime rate shows "people are doing more positive things in their off-duty time," Ley said.

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