| The arrest of Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, chief of the Air Force sexual assault prevention branch, on charges that he groped a woman underscores the growing problem of sexual assaults in the military. (Arlington County Police Department / May 6, 2013) |
The news that sexual assaults in the armed forces last year were estimated to be up 35% over 2010 brought a swift response from President Obama ? that he had "no tolerance" for sexual crimes in the ranks and that perpetrators would be prosecuted and punished.
The news was alarming but perhaps not all that surprising. Not after the revelation just a few days earlier that Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, the chief of the Air Force sexual assault prevention branch, had himself been arrested on suspicion of drunkenly groping a woman outside a bar near the Pentagon. If the officer who's supposed to be leading the charge against sexual assault has actually engaged in the practice in his free time, then clearly the military has a profound problem.
Krusinski's case has yet to be tried, but regardless of the outcome, the military culture must change. Assaults are continuing to rise despite numerous programs designed to halt them. And it's not just women being assaulted. The Department of Defense report released this week estimates that 12,100 women on active duty were sexually assaulted (out of 200,000 women in the armed forces overall) and 13,900 men were sexually assaulted (out of 1.2 million).
Many of the proposals for how to change the culture are coming from female legislators on Capitol Hill. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) plan to introduce a bill next week to address service members' reluctance, apparently for fear of retribution, to report sexual assault. Currently, service members' reports of sexual assault move through the chain of command to a higher authority who has the power to decide whether the case goes forward, for instance, to a court martial.
The bill would take such cases out of the chain of command and allow the service member to report directly to military prosecutors, who would determine whether court action was appropriate. This avoids having a service person report to a commander who knows him or her and might know the alleged assailant. According to a spokesman for Gillibrand, this would apply to reports not just of sexual assault but any alleged crime that could bring the accused a punishment of a year or more in prison.
This would be a smart change. High-ranking officials are expected to fight it, arguing that keeping such decisions within the chain of command is important to establishing order and discipline.
But clearly there hasn't been enough discipline when it comes to preventing sexual assault in the military.
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