One lawmaker is asking the Pentagon to look into a significant spike in abuse among military children, coming as troops return home after more than a decade of war.
On Tuesday, Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., sent a letter to Brad Carson, the acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, asking him to look into a nearly 25 percent increase in military child abuse since 2011.
“With the end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, more troops are home and the stress that has mounted on military families over the last 15 years is jarring and has been well documented,” Speier wrote.
There were 7,676 cases of child abuse or neglect in the military in fiscal 2014, an increase of 10 percent from the previous year and 24 percent from 2011, Speier wrote, according to data reported to Family Advocacy Programs.
Speier, who serves as the ranking member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, asked the Pentagon to conduct a survey of military children to get new data on the actual rate of abuse and neglect, not just those reported to military programs. She also asked the department to brief her on what punishments service members received for confirmed cases of abuse and how effective they were.
