Sex Assault Reports Rise in Military
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/us/17assault.html
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: March 16, 2010
WASHINGTON The Department of Defense released an annual report on
Tuesday showing an 11 percent increase in reports of sexual assault
in the military over the past year, including a 16 percent increase
in reported assaults occurring in combat areas, principally Iraq and
Afghanistan.
The report said there were 3,230 reports of sexual assault filed
involving service members as either victims or assailants in the
fiscal year that ended in September. The Pentagon attributed the rise
largely to an upward trend in the reporting of incidents, and said
the jump did "not necessarily" reflect an increase in the number of incidents.
The Pentagon offered no evidence that reporting rather than sexual
assault itself was on the rise in the military, and there have been
reports in recent years suggesting that the strains between men and
women in close quarters in war zones have exacerbated the problem.
But it is also true that since 2004 the Defense Department has
radically changed the way it handles sexual abuse in the military,
including encouraging victims to come forward, expanding access to
treatment and toughening standards for prosecution.
From 2007 to 2008, there was an 8 percent increase in reported
assaults, with an 11 percent increase in combat areas. The Defense
Department said that for the purposes of the 2009 report, "combat
areas" included Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen and other countries in
the Middle East and Central Asia where military men and women are serving.
"One sexual assault is too many," Kaye Whitley, the director of the
Pentagon's sexual assault prevention and response office, said in a
telephone interview.
The 2009 report, like previous reports, included sexual assaults by
civilians on service members and by service members on civilians. But
Ms. Whitley said a majority, 53 percent, were assaults by service
members on other service members.
Of all the assaults, Ms. Whitley said, a vast majority, 87 percent,
were male on female, while 7 percent were male on male. The typical
case, she said, was an assault by an 18- to 25-year-old junior
enlisted male service member on a woman, with alcohol involved.
In the report, sexual assault was defined as rape, sodomy and other
unwanted sexual contact, including touching of private body parts. It
did not include sexual harassment, which is handled by another office
in the military.
Ms. Whitley said that most sexual assault in the military went
unreported, as it did in the general population, and that she did not
believe that there was more sexual assault in the military than in
the population at large. "We are recruiting from the society we
serve," she said.
The report said that sexual assault was devastating to individual
service members because it "destroys the human spirit," but that it
also took a serious toll on the military. "Sexual assault
reverberates throughout a unit and beyond," it said.
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Department of Defense Report on Sexual Assault in the Military (pdf)
http://www.sapr.mil/media/pdf/reports/fy09_annual_report.pdf
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Defense Department Notes Rise in Sexual Assault Reporting
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=58341
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, March 16, 2010 – Reports of sexual assault involving
servicemembers rose by 11 percent in fiscal 2009, a senior Defense
Department official said yesterday.
In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 3,230 reports of sexual
assault were filed.
An increase in reporting was a goal for the department, said Kaye
Whitley, director of the Defense Department's sexual abuse prevention
and response office.
"Research in the civilian community shows that sexual assault is
widely underreported, and we believe that is the same in the
military," she said in an interview. "As a result, increasing
reporting has been one of our key goals. We want people who are
victims of sexual assault to come forward so they can get the help
that they need." The department's goal is to create a "climate of
confidence" so that people will come forward to report, she added.
One aspect of the program is a confidential reporting option called
"restricted reporting," which lifts some of the barriers that can
deter military personnel from reporting sexual assault. Unrestricted
reporting means the victim's command is notified and an investigation
initiated. Under the restricted reporting option, the command is not
notified and an investigation does not follow. Still, the victim can
receive medical, mental health and all other services without
becoming involved in the military criminal justice process.
Whitley said the number of sexual assaults in the military probably
is comparable to the civilian community, but that direct comparisons
are hard to make. The overall rate for the Defense Department was two
reports of sexual assault per thousand servicemembers. In the Army,
the rate was 2.6 per thousand. In the Navy it was 1.6 per thousand,
in the Air Force 1.4 per thousand, and in the Marine Corps 1.3 per
thousand. Service-specific data, including the total numbers of
reports, is included in the annual report.
"Our total number includes both perpetrators and victims," Whitley
said. The data covers eight categories of sexual assault ranging from
the least-egregious wrongful sexual contact to rape.
"We need to keep in mind that these are reports where the victim or
the perpetrator was a military member," Whitley said. The reports
include sexual assaults reported that involved a military member
against a military member, a military member against a civilian or a
civilian against a military member, she explained.
Last year, Whitley said, 123 victims converted their restricted
reports to the unrestricted category. "What we find are those people
who are victims of sexual assault, they feel a loss of control,"
Whitley said. "Then, when we meet with them and give them these
reporting options, they get a little bit of that control back. So
often, they will go home and if they feel supported and start feeling
comfortable with reporting it, they will change it to an unrestricted
report, in which case we can investigate and prosecute."
The restricted reporting option has been in place since 2005, and it
fills a need, Whitley said. "We've had over 3,600 people use that
option since then, so that tells me that over 3,600 people wouldn't
have come forward otherwise," she said.
Whitley said she would like to think the rise in reported cases has
resulted from the emphasis the department is putting on sexual abuse
prevention and the department's efforts to tell people about the program.
Last year, the theme of the awareness and education campaign was "My
Strength for Defending: Preventing Sexual Assault Part of My Duty."
This year's theme -- "Hurts one. Affects all. Preventing sexual
assault is everyone's duty" -- builds on that and concentrates on
readiness, Whitley said.
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