Sexual assaults in Army up 26 percent

The Army saw a 26 percent increase in reports of sexual assault, compared to 13 percent across the U.S. military. Every two years, the Pentagon also does an anonymous survey asking service members if they experienced unwanted sexual contact. Those numbers were up to 36,000 from 20,000 in 2018. That means about 1 in 5 service members reported an incident in the previous year. It is unclear whether those numbers represent more incidents or more people willing to speak about them.

Is the military changing its policies? Army officials said a training program that occurs when they first get on base has seen some results. They have also begun asking service members at random to evaluate unit leaders they know. Data collected from those evaluations and one other study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicated that a woman’s chance of being sexually assaulted in the military was the same as in the general population. Men’s risk was lower in the military.

Dig deeper: Read Carolina Lumetta’s report in The Stew on suicide and mental illness in the military.