I know the title sounds like a possible misquote but, taken direct from the Army Times, the reality of how the military is mishandling sexual assault in its ranks couldn't be clearer. Nor could the detrimental effect this misconduct has on the military and its members be any clearer or the need to address, prevent and treat it be any more timely.

The official DoD SAPRO FY2008 (SAPRO is the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, http://www.sapr.mil/ ) press release does not fare much better. Statistics are used to misrepresent the situation.
The press release, which can be seen below, uses selective reporting to make it seem as though 38% of reported cases go to court martial (how many are convicted is a statistic that is not tallied by the DoD, oddly enough).

Taken directly from the press release:

In fiscal 2008, the department received a total of 2,908 reports of sexual assault involving service members, representing an eight percent increase from fiscal 2007. There were 753 restricted reports filed in fiscal 2008. The restricted reporting option allows a military member to obtain care confidentially without initiating an investigation. This year 110 victims converted their report from restricted to unrestricted.

The report also showed that court-martial actions substantially increased from 30 percent in fiscal 2007 to 38 percent in fiscal 2008, meaning that military commanders referred eight percent more cases to trial.

If one takes the time to read the numbers, or first find them in the 83 pages of the full report, the number of court martials is 317. I don't believe the military has mathematicians that are unable to calculate percentages, but 317 is NOT 38% of 2908. It actually is 38% of the 832 cases that were found to be substantiated. A similar proportion, 247, received non judicial punishment even though most civilians would certainly feel this was an inappropriate form of punishment. The military mindset will often say this is so the commander can take appropriate action but in the civilian world an outside body, with no conflict of interest, decides how one is punished. This is for a reason.

About 1079 cases were unsubstantiated, a large portion of the 1339 cases that were not fully investigated. Anyone who has listened to the stories of sexually assaulted service members is fully aware of the pressures involved in reporting assault, especially when ones report is publicized in their unit, all too often a source of much secondary harassment, an situation that leads to both unde reporting as well as withdrawal of reports.

There is also a strange silence on the report from many veterans service organizations, failing once again to see the importance of understanding, treating and preventing sexual assault for the health and well being of service members and veterans. I often joke with other female veterans that we are presented with the pap smear as what we need rather than real understanding and justice, but this silence makes the joke not so funny.

Please take the time to read the whole report and see for yourself: http://www.sapr.mil/contents/ResourcesReports/AnnualReports/DoD_FY08_Ann...

Also, please email any veterans organization that has not covered this issue and request that they live up to their name of VETERANS organization, and not leave any vets behind.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/03/military_sexual_assualt_statistics...
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=12561

Repost from:
http://www.claimingjustice.org/Blog/page1/2009/03/18/82e8f077-3bbf-4034-...