Sexual assault in the military keeps rising while prosecutions fall
By Meghann Myers
Thursday, Apr 27
The 2022 Defense Department sexual assault report shows relatively steady reporting, but a drop in criminal charges. (Army)
Cases of reported sexual assault in the military keep rising, but you wouldn’t think so if you look at how many suspected perpetrators actually end up being tried, much less punished for their alleged crimes. The services charged fewer suspected sexual assault perpetrators with crimes in 2022 than in the previous decade, according to data released Thursday in the Pentagon’s congressionally mandated annual sexual assault report.
While reported sexual assaults have increased over the past 10 years, and the percentage of substantiated reports has remained relatively stable, the number of cases prosecuted has been cut nearly in half.
Those numbers of prosecutions have continued to fall even as lawmakers and rights advocates pushed to take the power of prosecution out of the hands of individual military commanders, and hand it to an independent sexual assault prosecutor’s office.
“That change was largely due to the perception that when a military commander makes these makes these prosecution decisions, that they are not expert attorneys in these cases,” Dr. Nate Galbreath, deputy director of DoD’s Sexual Assault and Prevention Office, told reporters Thursday. “In addition to that ... commanders have a difficult choice between believing victims allegation versus people that they might know in their unit.”
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/04/27/sexual-assault-in-the-military-keeps-rising-while-prosecutions-fall/
