Sexual Assault in the Military Services

Report of the Defense Task Force on Sexual Assault in the Military Services

In compiling this report, the Task Force gathered and analyzed information from two detailed data calls to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the Combatant Commands, and the Military Services. We conducted site visits at sixty installations in the United States, the Middle East, the Pacific Rim, and Europe, including deployed locations. During these site visits, we interviewed key decision makers and service providers responsible for addressing sexual assault. We also conducted focus groups at each site to assess Service Members’ understanding of sexual assault, as well as military sexual assault prevention and response programs, policies, and practices. With the assistance of the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC), the Task Force developed, administered, and then analyzed results of surveys of Sexual Assault Response Coordinators (SARCs), their supervisors and Victim Advocates (VAs). Within the realm of military justice, we conducted extensive interviews with prosecutors, defense counsel, military judges, convening authorities, and senior policy officials, and we made site visits at the US Disciplinary Barracks (USD at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Naval Consolidated Brig at Miramar, California, and Department of Defense forensic laboratory at Fort Gillem, Georgia. We considered results from our review of hundreds of criminal investigative files from the Military Services, as well as interviews with law enforcement officials during site visits and within the Washington, DC region. The Task Force sought public comment at each of our site visits and public meetings. More than sixty victims of sexual assault provided information for our consideration. We generated this report based upon the efforts outlined above, a thorough review of related reports, studies, and articles, and a series of subcommittee and full Task Force public meetings.

An excerpt follows:

Training and Socialization

Each year, the Armed Forces bring in new Service Members with diverse experiences, values, beliefs, and cultural backgrounds. It is imperative that all military personnel be sufficiently trained to be capable and ready to respond to the many circumstances they may face, professionally and personally, regardless of their backgrounds. Structured and frequent training is integral to military culture and incorporates instruction in military skills, knowledge, and attitudes essential to performance as a member of the Armed Forces. Initial military training serves as the primary socialization process for integrating and instilling in recruits a common sense of purpose, an understanding of military expectations, core values and standards, structure and discipline, teamwork, and pride. Socialization during military service is continual, and is used to reinforce standards as well as to effect change. In short, military training introduces and reinforces the culture necessary to ensure military effectiveness and mission readiness.

Military training creates unique challenges for preventing and responding to sexual assault. If not closely monitored, training environments may create conditions conducive to abuse of authority and perceived power. Those undergoing training view their training cadre as authority figures based on their expertise and position in the chain of command. Trainers provide close and constant supervision, set and enforce conditions, and have the power to influence trainees’ success. Further, associated with the tightly controlled training environment, routine accountability checks are performed that verify trainees’ whereabouts. As a result, seeking and receiving confidential support for a sexual assault can be a challenge. One training commander remarked:

The expectations of a training environment are to get them in, get them trained, get them fit to fight . . . a sexual assault report stops this process momentarily . . . some leaders may view it as an inconvenience rather than a crime. . . . Although many leaders know how to talk about zero tolerance, the fact remains that many people’s behaviors don’t always match up, and that sends a mixed message to our younger folks.

Mixed messages about sexual assault prevention and response during training, particularly at the inception of military service, diminishes the Services’ ability to leverage training to convey a military culture of zero tolerance for sexual assault and other unacceptable behaviors, and to instill confidence in the SAPR Program.

Most Military Services specify special selection criteria for training cadre to reduce the risks of mistreatment of recruits or inappropriate relationships between trainers and trainees. However, if trainers fail to live up to these standards, trainees may feel limited as to what actions they can take, especially in the case of a sexual assault.

Read the report in its entirety, 68 pages in length.

Report of the Defense Task Force on Sexual Assault in the Military Services

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