Department of Defense Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military Fiscal Year 2015

Download or read book Department of Defense Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military Fiscal Year 2015 written by U.s. Department of Defense and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-03-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Military Services received a total of 6,083 reports of sexual assault involving Service members as either victims or subjects throughout fiscal year 2015, which represents a 1% decrease from the reports made in fiscal year 2014.1 Although many of these reports were for incidents that occurred in fiscal year 2015, some incidents occurred in prior years. Of the 6,083 reports of sexual assault, 5,240 were Service member victims who made a report. Of those 5,240 Service member victims, 504 victims (approximately 10%) made a report for incidents that occurred before they entered into Military Service. The United States military allows victims to make Unrestricted or Restricted Reports of sexual assault. The Military Services received 4,584 Unrestricted Reports involving Service members as either victims or subjects, a 2% decrease from fiscal year 2014. The Military Services initially received 1,900 Restricted Reports involving Service members as either victims or subjects. Four hundred and one (21%) of the initial Restricted Reports later converted to Unrestricted Reports. These 401 converted Restricted Reports are now counted with the Unrestricted Reports. Of the initial Restricted Reports, 1,499 reports remained Restricted at the end of fiscal year 2015, a 2% increase from fiscal year 2014. The Services do not investigate Restricted Reports and do not record the identities of alleged perpetrators. The Department takes appropriate action in every case where it has jurisdiction. This year, the Department had jurisdiction to take some kind of disciplinary action against 72% of military subjects. Disciplinary action was not possible for the remaining 28% of military subjects due to evidentiary or other legal factors, such as unfounded by command/legal review, victim declined to participate, insufficient evidence, statute of limitations expired, or victim died before completion of the military justice action. Appendices B and C of this report detail sexual assault data from fiscal year 2015. The major survey conducted in fiscal year 2015 was the Workplace and Gender Relations Survey for Reserve Component Members; results can be found in Annex 1 of this report. A survey to estimate fiscal year 2015 sexual assault prevalence for the Active Duty Force was not conducted this year as it is only collected on a biennial basis pursuant to Section 481 of Title 10 United States Code. Last year's survey results, however, indicated that the estimated prevalence of sexual assault within the Military Services decreased significantly for women and trended downward for men, when compared to estimated prevalence rates measured in fiscal year 2012. The Department will conduct a survey this coming fiscal year and its results will be included in the fiscal year 2016 Annual Report to update estimated prevalence rates for the Active Duty Force.