Unit commanders need to be held responsible for making sure sexual assault cases are processed properly, Sen. Martha McSally said in response to a Pentagon report that found sexual assaults on active-duty women increased 44% in two years.
The Arizona Republican said that processing is taking far too long and commanders must ensure it improves. The 2018 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, released Thursday, found 6.2% of women were victims of sexual assault in 2018, up from 4.3% in 2016. Men saw almost no difference, with 0.7% reporting an assault in 2018 and 0.6% in 2016.
“I very strongly believe commanders need to keep responsibility and accountability to address this issue, and I wanted to meet with commanders to talk to them directly at all these bases,” said McSally, who has visited several military installations in her state.
McSally, herself a survivor of sexual assault from her time in the Air Force, asked the military’s Sexual Assault Accountability Task Force to investigate the shortfalls in the investigative and judicial processing of sexual assault cases earlier this year.
“I specifically was looking for things that would improve the process so that commanders can be held accountable and responsible and we can have timely and thorough investigations that are treating the victim with dignity, stopping retaliation, having good communication with the victim, and also protecting due process,” said McSally.
McSally said her tour of Arizona bases uncovered a theme: The processing of sexual assault cases is simply taking too long. She described the problem as a “readiness issue” and noted the military is “under-resourced and undermanned” when it comes to combating sexual assault. She called for more personnel to be assigned to sexual assault cases, with a special victims counsel at every military installation. Many of these advocates are currently shared among bases, adding days to the process, according to the senator.
The Sexual Assault Accountability and Investigation Task Force, which was created this year at McSally’s request, released its own report Thursday. Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan wrote a memo directing the Department of Defense to implement those recommendations, including making sexual harassment a stand-alone military crime. He also instructed the Pentagon to launch the Catch a Serial Offender Program, which would train personnel on how to spot repeat offenders, and called for improvements to the recruitment process.
