Bryan Wood, USMC Pacific Division director for planning, said crime rates around Marine bases in the states. are extremely lower than national average.
When asked about recent media coverage of elevated crime rates in Okinawa, Wood said crime rates around the Marine Corps bases in Okinawa are relatively lower than in the Okinawan communities itself.
“I think they [media] report the incidences that occur but those incidences are very few and far between.
Unfortunately all it takes is that one bad apple and you just can’t stop that no matter where you are,” Wood said during his presentation at the Hita I Marianas conference titled, “The Untapped Potential of the Marianas and Micronesian Workforce.”
Sen. Judi Guthertz, chairwoman of the Legislative Committee on the Military Buildup and Homeland Security, said as a former Guam Police Department chief, she understands the need to enforce local laws to deter crimes.
“I think the Marines will be on their best behavior here because there are serious sanctions for them if they misbehave,” Guthertz said.
She said the crime rate is an issue she has been discussing with outgoing Joint Guam Program Office Director David Bice.
She said they have discussed the possibility of joint patrols between the Marine patrol division and GPD, particularly in highly visited areas like Tumon.
Wood said the first batch of Marines is scheduled to arrive on Guam in 2013.
That will be a very small contingent — about 150 — of logistics personnel who will handle the larger move that will be determined later.
The timeframe will depend on the Adaptive Program Management that the Department of Defense created to ensure Guam’s infrastructure will be able to properly accommodate the increase in population as a result of the military buildup.
Having lived on Guam for two years in the mid-1990s, Wood said he is familiar with the relationship the military has developed with the island and Micronesia.
“We are not here to execute next year’s program. We are not here to build a base. We are here to be here for a minimum of 50 years,” Wood said.
“We want to be good partners. We want to be good friends. We don’t want to bring our own culture here — we want to have the Marines adapt to the great culture that is in Guam,” he added.
