Sexual assaults now an epidemic, Pentagon reports
WASHINGTON — Sexual assaults in the military are a growing epidemic across the services and thousands of victims are still unwilling to come forward despite a slew of new oversight and assistance programs, according to Pentagon documents.
Troubling new numbers estimate that as many as 26,000 military members may have been sexually assaulted last year, according to survey results released against a backdrop of scandals including an ongoing investigation into more than 30 Air Force instructors for assaults on trainees at a Texas base.
The report comes days after the Air Force’s head of sexualassault prevention was arrested last weekend on charges of groping a woman in a suburban Virginia parking lot. President Obama delivered a sharp rebuke Tuesday, saying he has no tolerance for the problem, and he said he talked to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel about it. He said that any military member found guilty of sexual assault should be held accountable, prosecuted and fired.
“I don’t want just more speeches or awareness programs or training, or ultimately folks look the other way,” he said. The Pentagon documents show that the number of sexual assaults reported by members of the military increased 6 percent to 3,374 in 2012. But a survey of personnel who were not required to reveal their identities showed that number could be as many as 26,000, officials said Tuesday.
This week’s sexual battery arrest of Air Force Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, who headed the Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response unit, provided a rallying point for lawmakers, who held it up Tuesday as an example of the Pentagon’s failure to make progress despite the increased effort.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., told Air Force officials at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday that “while under our legal system everyone is innocent until proven guilty, this arrest speaks volumes about the status and effectiveness of (the Defense) department’s efforts to address the plague of sexual assaults in the military.”
Gen. Mark Welsh, the Air Force chief of staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he and Air Force Secretary Michael Donley were “appalled” by the charges against Krusinski.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, DMo., one of the most vocal critics of the military’s efforts to stop sexual assaults, pressed Welsh on what qualifications Krusinski had for the job and whether Welsh reviewed his personnel file since his arrest to see if there were any red flags.
Welsh said he found nothing irregular in Krusinski’s file.