SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LEON PANETTA FIGHTS AGAINST SEXUAL ASSAULTS IN MILITARY

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE

Panetta Vows to Continue Fighting Sexual Assault in Military

WASHINGTON, April 13, 2012 - With the release of an annual report today on sexual assault in the military, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta vowed to continue fighting to stamp out the crime among service members.

DOD officials delivered the Report on Sexual Assault in the Military to the House and Senate armed service committees today. The report noted there were 3,192 reports of sexual assault in fiscal 2011 compared with 3,158 in fiscal 2010, a one percent increase.

"Sexual assault has no place in this department," said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in a press release on the report. "It is an affront to the basic American values we defend, and to the good honor of our service members and their families."

Countering sexual assault has been one of the secretary's top priorities since taking office last year. Panetta wants all members of the department "to do everything we can to reduce and prevent sexual assault, to make victims of sexual assault feel secure enough to report this crime without fear of retribution or harm to their career, and to hold the perpetrators appropriately accountable."

The secretary will meet with members of Congress next week to propose new measures to counter sexual assault and give DOD new tools to erase this scourge.

The report details ways the department is working to implement its sexual assault prevention and response plan. The first step is to institutionalize prevention strategies across the services. DOD looks to influence the knowledge, skills and behaviors of service members to prevent sexual assaults from happening. Officials are looking to training, a social media campaign and posters/commercials to increase awareness and encourage good behaviors.

The strategy also looks to increase the confidence those who have been assaulted have in the reporting process. DOD wants to engender a positive and supportive command climate that encourages people to reports cases of sexual assault. The department also wants to reduce stigma and other barriers that deter reporting.

The report also details additional programs, policies and activities that will improve the response to sexual assault. It details the new 24/7 hotline for sexual assault victims and improvements to education for case workers, as well as new exams and health care for victims of sexual assault.

The report also recommends ways to improve service through system accountability. "In fiscal 2011, commanders had sufficient evidence to take disciplinary action against 989 subjects," the report says. "For the 791 subjects who could be disciplined for a sexual assault offense, 62 percent had courts-martial charges preferred for a sexual assault offense, 24 percent received nonjudicial punishment under Article 15 of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice and 14 percent received a discharge or another adverse administrative action."

This is a 10 percent increase in courts-martial over fiscal 2010, the report says. The proportion of military subjects against whom commanders decided to take disciplinary action for sexual assault offenses by preferring court-martial charges has increased steadily since fiscal 2007, when only 30 percent of subjects had charges initiated against them.

Finally the strategy looks to "improve stakeholder knowledge." This means reaching out to service members about the sexual abuse prevention and response program. It also means reaching out to the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services. It further means taking the message of the mission to non-traditional audiences to enlist their support for the effort.

Panetta appointed Air Force Maj. Gen. Mary Kay Hertog to oversee the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. He also directed several new victim-focused policies that have been implemented since the end of fiscal 2011. Among these are expanded legal assistance, expedited transfers for victims of sexual assault and extended retention of forensic examination and investigative reports.

Other initiatives to enhance prevention and response efforts include establishing a sexual assault advocate credentialing and certification program; expanding sexual assault support services to military spouses and adult military dependents; expanding emergency care and support services to DOD civilians stationed abroad and DOD U.S. citizen contractors in combat areas; and increasing funding for investigators and judge advocates to receive additional specialized training.

The department is also assessing how the department trains commanding officers and senior enlisted leaders on sexual assault prevention and response.

"As this report makes clear, we have more work to do to confront this problem," Panetta said in the release. "There are no easy answers, but that makes it all the more essential for us to devote our energy and our attention to trying to confront this challenging crime."

NEW SEXUAL RESPONSE TO SEXUAL ASSAULTS IN THE MILITARY

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE

DOD Implements New Changes to Sexual Assault Response

By Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr.
WASHINGTON, April 2, 2012 - The Defense Department has refined new methods to aid sexual assault victims whether reporting a crime or seeking assistance as they transition from service, the director of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office said here March 30.

"We have several new options for victims of sexual assault," said Air Force Maj. Gen. Mary Kay Hertog. "First, if you've been a victim of sexual assault in the military you now have the option of requesting an expedited transfer. We signed that into effect in December."

"If you find it untenable or unbearable in the organization that you're at ... you can request to be transferred," she added.

Hertog said a service member's local commander has 72 hours to respond to the request for transfer, and if denied there is an option to take it to the first flag or general officer in the chain of command who also has 72 hours to respond.

"We also have a new document retention initiative," she said. "We heard loud and clear from our veterans that present themselves at the [Department of Veterans Affairs] years later that there was no documentation that they had ever been sexually assaulted [during] their military service."

The issue arose, Hertog said, because varying standards of retention had existed among all of the services but has since been resolved.

"We now have one standard of retention so those individuals that file unrestricted reports will have their documents retained for 50 years," she said.

"And those that file restricted reports will have their documents retained for five years," Hertog said. "And of course our victims of sexual assault who file restricted reports have that option to convert over to unrestricted reports at any time and then we will retain their documents for that 50-year period."

The director also discussed other innovations such as expanding legal assistance to encourage victims to participate in the military justice system "in order to hold that perpetrator accountable."

And as of January, DOD civilians and contractors deployed abroad, and military dependents over 18 years old are now eligible to access sexual assault response services, Hertog said.

Hertog noted other changes implemented include new training for investigators of sexual assault crimes within the services.

"Some of our new training initiatives concern our investigators such as our [Naval Criminal Investigative Service] agents, Air Force [Office of Special Investigations], and Army [Criminal Investigation Division]," she said. "We think we have found the gold standard course ... to send many of the agents to, to build a sexual assault subject expertise cadre of our agents to get them very familiar with these cases."

Hertog said training frequency will increase, more seats will be offered and the training has expanded to include Judge Advocate Generals "because these are some of the toughest cases to investigate as well as prosecute."

Perhaps the most useful option has been established for about a year, Hertog noted.

"You have the option of contacting our DOD Safe helpline," she said. "We stood up a 24/7 crisis hotline -- it's operated by RAINN, the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network -- who have been trained by us so they're very familiar with military terminology."

"If you don't want to go through your chain of command you can contact them and they will tell you where your nearest rape crisis center is in your community outside your installation gates," Hertog said.

Hertog said the hotline has been "extremely successful" with about 30,000 unique visits to the site and about 2,500 referrals for counseling services.

She emphasized the Defense Department's commitment to "eradicating" sexual assault in the military "from the Secretary [of Defense] on down.

"We have to eliminate this problem from our ranks," Hertog added. "The American public gives us what's most dear to them and that's their sons and daughters. And they trust us that we're going to take care of them [which] is a commander's job."