By I have to wonder if the increase of sexual assault reporting has more to do with increased emphasis on reporting sexual assaults than from any actual increase?:
The number of sexual assaults reported in the U.S. military rose 11 percent last year, the Defense Department said Tuesday, but Pentagon officials conceded that they still don’t know how common sexual assaults are because many troops fear retribution if the attacks come to the attention of their commanders.Despite the suspected underreporting, sexual assault is more common in the military than it is among the civilian population, the report suggests: two for every 1,000 service members, versus 1.8 per 1,000 civilian women and one per 1,000 civilian men, according to statistics compiled by the Family Violence Prevention Fund.
During the past year, the Defense Department has campaigned to encourage victims of sexual assault to come forward, and officials said they think that effort led to the increase.
“Our goal was to get more people to report” assaults, said Kaye Whitley, the director of the Defense Department’s sexual assault prevention and response office, which compiled the report.
Whitley said having a more accurate picture of sexual assaults is needed so that her office can offer programs both to discourage assaults and respond to them. “We use the numbers to design programs,” she said.
Women in the military, in particular, are reluctant to come forward for fear of appearing weak or being ostracized for reporting a fellow soldier, Pentagon officials say. Many women also complain that they’ve been accused of being gay under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy after rebuffing unwanted advances from their male colleagues. [Stars & Stripes]
Something else to keep in mind is that this article doesn’t state how many of these sexual assault reports were found to be legitimate. Something else I found of interest was that male on male sexual assault was up by 40%. Additionally I don’t think the civilian comparison is particularly relevant when civilians do not receive the amount of briefings soldiers do on reporting sexual assault and civilians are not piled on top of each other in the barracks either, which is where most sexual assaults happen.
9:19 pm on March 17th, 2010 1
Again, skewed perspectives from media. The Bureau of Justice Statistics and a lot of other criminal statistic tracking organizations track a lot of STATISTICS ON CRIME! Too bad the author of that article didn't look at the complete picture and report accurately. Again the article uses fear and inflamatory comments to sway persception and perspective of the audience.
9:19 pm on March 17th, 2010 2
Reported is the keyword.
11:36 pm on March 17th, 2010 3
A huge portion of "sexual assaults" in the military are where the barracks girl gets willingly screws a guy and then the next day she says she was raped. Why? Because these immature girls don't want their girlfriends to know the truth about their sluttiness.
11:38 pm on March 17th, 2010 4
I like it.
If reported sexual assaults go down, "Assaults are down because our programs are working as intended."
If reported sexual assaults go up, "More people are reporting because our programs are working as intended."
If reported sexual assaults stay the same, "Assaults are down and reporting is up because our programs are working as intended."
If drunken raape gangs roam the barracks hallways with stun guns and duct tape, "We have identified the major factors related to sexual assaults because our programs are working as intended."
There is no fail!
1:36 am on March 18th, 2010 5
Another reason why the civilian comparison is not accurate is because of the standard of what constitutes sexual assualt in the civilian world and in the military is in many ways very different. With the military side being much stricter.
2:26 am on March 18th, 2010 6
The civilian law enforcement folks wouldn't move forward with 2/3rds of the garbage packaged as 'sexual assault' in the military during my time as Trial Defense Counsel in Korea a few years back.
I read absolutely nothing into any statistics about sexual assault ever reported.
5:25 am on March 18th, 2010 7
0 tolerance defect military. All OER's must be positive. Hoohah!
6:36 am on March 18th, 2010 8
In addition to the other valid points made about the comparison of military and civilian sexual assault statistics, this comparison apparently does not take into account demographic differences. The military is comprised largely of men between the ages of 18 and 34, the same demographic that is responsible for most violent crime. It would be interesting to compare reported sexual assaults among military personnel to reported sexual assaults among college students.
9:18 am on March 19th, 2010 9
Another article on the doubling of sexual assaults at Bagram Air Base says sexual assault can be anything from groping to rape. Might it someday also include ogling?
GI Korea, the article cited here is not the same article linked to at Stars and Stripes. The Stripes article was written by Jeff Schogol. This article was written by someone named Nancy A. Youssef at McClatchy Newspapers
I was curious to know who wrote the statement;
You can't be "accused of being gay under" Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell unless you are caught committing a homosexual act, and I figured a Stars and Stripes writer would know that.
9:33 pm on May 2nd, 2010 10
Civ One,
"I have worked with military victims of sexual assault for over 5 years."
While we all know the stories of the skanks, the liars and the drunks, in your experience, what are the factors that lead to sexual assault of "normal" girls?
10:18 pm on May 2nd, 2010 11
Perhaps they got in over their heads but their combatives training didn't pan out so well…
10:26 pm on May 2nd, 2010 12
My twenty years of experience in the Army does not agree with your five years.
"Terrified and want medical treatment": Most leaving a barracks room of a male looked neither terrified nor in need of medical treatment.
I'm not saying rape never happens. I knew one ignorent female living on the first floor that decided leaving the window open was a good idea. However her reputation was of no concern as she walked thru the ranks of over sixty males that had been quickly formed on saturday morning for her and a female MP to walk thru. So she could pick out the guy that raped her FROM BEHIND. Whites, Blacks and Browns all formed up and ranks opened for her "inspection". Everyone on the Camp knew who had clamed to be raped and what the Males had been ordered to do because of it.
Nothing like 60 males being accused of rape on saturday morning at the same time to take away any gentle feelings for the american service woman.
She showed no "shame" as she walked thru the ranks and looked at each soldier in the face. That was in the 80s, when all a female had to do was point you out and your career was over.
Camp Humphreys really rocked back then.
2:11 am on May 3rd, 2010 13
I have worked with military victims of sexual assault for over 5 years. Most of them would have preferred to make a restricted report to avoid the embarassment and shame – usually doled out by people like you. They are usually terrified and want medical treatment. They don’t want anyone to know. Hmmm, if they were trying to save their reputations, wouldn’t they want the rape allegation public?
I wonder how many of those “huge portions” of sexual assault you mentioned involved you.