The number of reported sexual assaults in the military is rising, but Pentagon officials took an apparent increase in willingness to report as a sign that the number may be falling.
The number of reported sexual assaults in the military rose 11 percent, from 5,518 in fiscal 2013 to 6,131 in fiscal 2014, the Department of Defense said Friday. While significant, it is a much smaller increase than the jump the military saw after 2012, when intense scrutiny and attention to reporting techniques saw numbers jump from 3,604 reported assaults in 2012 to 2013’s 5,518.
Despite the continued increases, the Defense Department found that improved reporting and increased confidence from victims that their cases were handled professionally were having a positive effect: While the number of reported assaults had increased, the total number of incidents — including unreported incidents — had fallen.
However, the data that the Pentagon used to make that conclusion was not consistently obtained or analyzed, making it difficult to confirm that the number of assaults occurring within the ranks is indeed falling.
First, the Pentagon based its conclusion on a scientific survey conducted on behalf of the department by the RAND Corporation, which invited 560,000 members of the active duty, reserves and guard to respond to a series of questions that would help them draw conclusions about the rate of unwanted sexual contact. Of those 560,000 questionnaires, 170,000 responses were received, the most comprehensive look at sexual assault within the military to date.
However, RAND made statistical conclusions only on the active duty component of its survey – 145,300 of the respondents.
Based on answers those 145,300 active-duty members provided, RAND concluded that the actual number of military sexual assaults on 1.3 million active-duty members in fiscal 2014 was 20,300. That figure has fallen from the Pentagon’s estimate in 2012 of 26,000, but still a figure Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter called “far, far too many.”
For consistency, the Defense Department also conducted its own survey, to have comparable numbers from 2012 to 2014. Based on that survey, the department found that in 2014 18,900 U.S. forces experienced unwanted sexual contact, compared with the 26,000 it found in 2012. However, it was not clear if those surveys also included only active-duty forces.
If all three components – active, reserve and guard – were included, it’s possible the number of estimated cases would increase. RAND did not include the reserves in its 2014 assessment because it is looking specifically at the reserves in a 2015 study.
Based on its statistics on the active duty forces, RAND estimates that more U.S. military males than females are assaulted each year – 9,600 active-duty U.S. military females compared with 10,600 active-duty U.S. military males. However, there are far fewer women in active duty than men: Of the 1.3 million active-duty force, only 197,491 are female. So the percentage of women experiencing sexual assault in the military is still higher – 4.9 percent – than the 1 percent of men.
The ratio of women in the guard and reserve forces is much higher – of the 794,051 members in the National Guard and Reserves, 147,412 are women.
• This article was originally published at 1:19 p.m. and has been updated.
