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Is There a Lot of Crime on Military Bases?Not as much as you'd think.

By Daniel EngberPosted Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009, at 8:28 PM ET

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An Army psychiatrist who was about to deploy to Iraq went on a two-gun shooting spree at Fort Hood in Texas on Thursday afternoon. Twelve people died in the attack, and 31 were wounded. How often do soldiers commit crimes on their bases?

Not very. Careful study of crime rates at military installations have been made overseas, where local communities may feel threatened by the presence of U.S. military forces. In Okinawa, Japan, for example, American soldiers have been involved in several high-profile rapes and have been accused of more widespread violence. While it's reasonable to expect that a population of young men trained in warfare would commit crimes at higher rates, a recent study found that the troops in Okinawa were less than half as likely to break the law as those in the general population. In Korea, too, U.S. servicemen seem to be arrested for serious crimes far less often than the locals.

A SWAT team enters the main gate at Fort HoodThat said, major crimes have been in on the rise across all bases since 2003, according to a report (PDF) released in July. Rates of arrests for murder, rape, assault, and arson saw an especially large bump between 2007 and 2008. The study, which was commissioned after six members of the same brigade were charged with homicides over a 12-month period, found that soldiers with more combat experience—and whose units had suffered more casualties—were at greater risk than other soldiers of developing mental illness, conduct problems, and criminal behavior. (Decades-old studies of Vietnam veterans came to similar conclusions.)

The responsibility for investigating murders and other major crimes on Army bases generally falls to the Criminal Investigation Command, headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Va. The Army formed its investigative branch in March 1863, after several years of contracting out the work to the Pinkerton Detective Agency and other private firms. About 750 special agents now work for the command, which has the use of a state-of-the-art, $30-million forensic laboratory in Georgia. According to data from 2002, Army investigators manage to solve 95 percent of the murders that occur on military bases.

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AP Video: A witness to the Fort Hood shooting

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Daniel Engber is a senior editor at Slate. He can be reached at .

Photograph of a SWAT team by Jerry Larson/Waco Tribune Herald/AP Photo.

COMMENTS

Another big reason there is less crime on military bases --- there is very stringent gun control, not to mention all other sorts of controls. The military is sort of like a fascist dictator who "makes the trains run on time." Low crime, but less freedom. The typical military base also has a much higher ratio of security to people than most communities can strive for. I would also point out that the military has vastly lower (sometimes almost zero) percentages of populations that are at high risk for crime, such as drug abusers and the poor.

An often recurring problem in military history, however, has been that when troops are exposed to extreme violence and casualties many of the traditional 'peacetime' controls lose their effectiveness. When your platoon has been pinned down and you've been wounded and seen friends die, suddenly threats of NJP (non judicial punishment) seem like so much chickensh*t. As they used to say, "What are you going to do, send me to Vietnam?" These problems are intensively discussed in the military, alas no simple solution has been found yet.

-- fozzy
(To reply, click here)

Your comments about on base gun control were very much to the point. It's hard to conceive of a more peaceable place than a US military installation. However, the quote above doesn't seem to be relevant to the Ft Hood situation. Major Hasan had never been stationed anywhere outside the US.

-- trashhauler
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Gun control on military installations only apply to those who choose to obey these controls. If you are authorized to be on post, it is a simple matter to bring weapons in with you, Fort Hood is like a city. It would be impractical to search every person and vehicle that enters every day.

Once in, the only armed opposition you have are the security forces. Everyone else is unarmed in the main part of post. If you see typical soldiers with weapons in the barracks areas, you can bet they are unloaded.

This practice works extremely well, unless of course you happen to be caught in the vicinity of an incident like this.

-- tjcerveza
(To reply, click here)

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