Military experiences slight rise in sexual assaults over 2021
Mike Brest
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The number of reported sexual assaults in the U.S. military increased slightly this year compared to last year.
The Defense Department’s Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military for fiscal 2022, which was released Thursday, revealed there were 8,942 sexual assault reports filed from Oct. 1, 2021, to Sept. 30, 2022, up 1% from the 8,866 sexual assault reports filed in fiscal 2021. There was a much larger jump, a 13% increase, in 2021 from the previous year.
The number of reports in the Army decreased from this year to last, and it averaged out the increased number of assaults from year to year in the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. The Army, which is the largest of the service branches, reported a 9% drop in sexual assaults — a year after they saw a roughly 25% jump in reports involving soldiers — whereas the Air Force saw a 13% increase, the Navy a 9% jump, and the Marine Corps a roughly 4% increase.
“To be crystal clear, the department’s most senior leaders remain sharply focused on solving the scourge of sexual assault and sexual harassment,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters on Thursday. “We’ll continue to work very hard to make sustained progress to bolster warfighter confidence and leadership, assist sexual assault survivors with a recovery, and hold offenders accountable. Sexual violence will not be tolerated, condoned, or ignored within our ranks.”
DOD has long been accused of not doing enough to prevent sexual assaults in the military and has struggled to come up with viable solutions to the problem.
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Roughly two-thirds of reported sexual assaults resulted in the allegations getting substantiated, a percentage that has remained steady over the last couple of years, while in the other third of cases, authorities were not able to prosecute largely because of insufficient evidence of a crime, which was also steady compared to previous years. One percent of cases were found to be baseless, which is also in line with the same category from previous years.
Nate Galbreath, acting director of the Pentagon’s sexual assault prevention and response office, said the department plans to use its $479 million budget this year to hire as many as 2,400 personnel for a new “prevention workforce,” and that roughly 350 have already been hired, according to the Associated Press.