The military's sexual assault problem has only gotten worse, despite the resources that have been committed to fighting it. According to the latest Pentagon progress report released on Friday,
military service academies recorded the highest rate of sexual assault since 2006, when the Defense Department began measuring the problem. Beth Foster, the DoD’s executive director of force resiliency, described the numbers as "extremely disappointing and upsetting."
The overall military has also seen an increase in sexual assault incidents. The latest annual DoD sexual assault report showed the highest prevalence of incidents against women in the services since tracking began. 8% of women and 1.5% of men reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact, which is second only to the 1.8% reported in 2006.
The biggest rise in incidents were seen among female cadets and midshipmen at the Air Force Academy and Naval Academy, which saw a 22% and 23% increase respectively in 2022. At West Point, the numbers were up 18%. Rates also rose for men at the academies, hovering around 4% for all three. This continuing trend of unwanted sexual contact at military service academies has been the sharpest for female Naval Academy midshipmen, with reported sexual assault incidents rising by 16.5 in 2010 and 2018.
Advocacy groups like Protect Our Defenders have expressed concern about the increasing prevalence of sexual assault in the military. Josh Connolly, vice chair of the organization, released a statement saying, "This report confirms what many of us have feared – that the scourge of sexual assault in our military is only getting worse. This report is particularly troubling because it exposes a dramatic increase in the prevalence of this abhorrent behavior at the institutions that are responsible for shaping the military’s future leaders." Connolly attributed the rise in incidents to "outdated training and attitudes."
The Pentagon alternates between surveys and in-person focus group sessions at the academies to capture data on incidents that were not formally reported, helping officials create an estimated overall rate. In this past year's survey, 155 reports of unwanted sexual contacts accounted for just under 14% of an estimated 1,100 overall incidents, with only 21.4% of women and 4.4% of men reporting their assaults. Nate Galbreath, the deputy director of DoD’s Sexual Assault and Prevention Office, stated that sexual assault incidents continue to go mostly unreported, and in the active force, the reporting rate is between 20% and 30%.
In response to the report, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is directing a handful of measures, including site visits to each academy to evaluate policies and training/education. The Naval Academy's visit wrapped up on Friday, with West Point next on the schedule. It remains to be seen whether these measures will be effective in curbing the rise of sexual assault incidents in the military. Photo by Piergiuliano Chesi, Wikimedia commons.