The sisters of Vanessa Guillen—Lupe, right, and Mayra—speak during a news conference outside the Capitol about legislation to allow military victims of sexual harassment and assault to report incidents outside the chain of command on May 13, 2021.

The sisters of Vanessa Guillen—Lupe, right, and Mayra—speak during a news conference outside the Capitol about legislation to allow military victims of sexual harassment and assault to report incidents outside the chain of command on May 13, 2021. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

It’ll Be ‘Years’ Before the Pentagon Fully Implements Changes to Handling Sexual Assaults

Congress has directed several major changes to the way the military handles sexual assault. Officials say full implementation remains several years away.

Part 2 of "The Threat Within," a three-part series on sexual assault in the U.S. military. Read Part 1

The Pentagon is years away from fully implementing the changes to its military justice system and sexual assault prevention and response programs that Congress ordered last December, service officials say.

Some of that is by design. The 2022 National Defense Authorization Act gave the military services until Dec. 27, 2023, to create a special trial counsel, which will take most prosecution authority away from military commanders for 11 crimes, including sexual assault and murder. Those new prosecution offices should be “up and running by June, so when the new program goes live at the end of 2023, that they’re ready,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., told reporters Wednesday.  

But other changes are simply overdue. The Pentagon has yet to fully implement 36 of the 198 sexual-assault related statutory requirements that Congress passed between 2004 and 2019, according to a March 2022 Government Accountability Office report.

There’s no time to waste, said Gillibrand, who sponsored clauses in the 2023 defense authorization bill now under consideration to extend the purview of the new prosecutor’s offices. “For every one of these assaults, you are undermining good order and discipline at its very core,” she said. 

Representatives for the services agree that comprehensive change is necessary to reverse the upward trend of military sexual assaults. But they say such extensive reform simply takes time.

Army

The impetus for an overhaul of the way the military handles sexual assault was the 2020 murder of Spc. Vanessa Guillen, the social media movement that shamed the Army into investigating it, and the report of the Fort Hood Independent Review Committee.

That report served as a “line of demarcation” for the Army, and since its release, the service has made “significant changes to the way that it counters harmful behaviors,” as well as altered its sexual assault and harassment training and “doubled down on our battalion and brigade-level commander selection process” to choose leaders who are “better suited to building positive command climates,” Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo told the House Armed Services Committee in September.

Camarillo spoke just weeks after the Pentagon released its annual report on sexual assault in the military, revealing that the Army had received 4,081 reports of sexual assault in fiscal 2021—a 25 percent increase from the previous year.

“The Army has made a serious commitment to change,” the undersecretary told lawmakers, noting that his service had implemented 63 of the 70 recommendations from the Fort Hood report and four of the six “priority” recommendations assigned to the Army by the Pentagon’s Independent Review Commission.

James Helis, director of the Army Resilience Directorate, told Defense One that the service is taking “a much more integrated and holistic approach to the prevention of harmful behaviors,” focusing on “a whole spectrum” of behaviors, including sexual assault, suicide, domestic violence, child abuse, and other crimes.

Helis said that it will take years to implement the new approach. It’s “not just a reaction to crisis,” he said, but an “intentional, long-term, multidimensional strategy to both get at these behaviors and institutionalize the changes that are required, so that we don’t...continue this cycle of crisis-and-response.”

The three biggest changes for the Army are creating the special trial counsel, restructuring the service’s sexual assault and prevention workforce, and creating and staffing integrated prevention advisory groups. The latter will have specialized experience in prevention, Helis said, and will examine all the data the installations have, assess risks, provide recommendations for how to reduce those risks, and help commanders design and implement recommended programs.

The Army has also added added a screening process process for potential battalion- and brigade-level commanders, Helis said. It looks at communication skills, empathy, and other “leadership traits that don’t necessarily appear in the electronic files the boards look at,” and is meant to determine “is this individual really ready for command.” He said the new screening has already yielded results.

“Nobody wants to see sexual assaults or suicides or poor climate. Nobody wants to see that in their units. What we need to do a better job of is equipping our commanders with the knowledge about how to get after prevention within their formations,” he said. “The will is there. The desire is there. We need to do a better job of providing commanders and leaders the tools they need, so they can actually get upstream of these problems..”

Navy and Marine Corps

In fiscal 2021, there were 1,883 reports of sexual assault in the Navy, a 9.2 percent increase from the previous year. The Marine Corps had 1,202 reports, up 2 percent.

But long-term data on military sexual assault indicates that “this is a solvable problem,” said Andrea Goldstein, acting director of the Navy Department’s Office of Force Resiliency (known until August as the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office). “It is a big problem, but there are definitely things that we can do.…We need to take a holistic approach. We can’t just train people once a year and talk solely about response without addressing prevention. We need to address the culture in which these issues are, in which these crimes take place.”

In June, the Navy Department implemented a “Safe-to-Report” policy, which states that troops who report being sexually assaulted cannot be disciplined for related minor misconduct, including underage drinking around the time of the alleged assault or an unprofessional relationship with the accused. 

The policy “eliminates a significant barrier,” Goldstein said. “Reporting a sexual assault can be a terrifying experience. And a victim or survivor of sexual assault should not fear that they will be punished for bravely coming forward.”

The department also created an implementation advisory panel that has allowed the Navy to move quickly on some of the Congressionally mandated sexual assault-related changes, including implementing a change to sexual harassment investigations 18 months earlier than required, Goldstein said, and enacting a “No Wrong Door” policy that allows victims to get help and support even if the agency they initially approach is not the officially correct agency to provide that assistance.

Like the Army, the Navy is hiring dozens of sexual-assault-prevention workers. And several other programs—as well as the shift of prosecutorial responsibility to special trial counsels—are still in the works. But the issue of sexual assault does not come down to just one policy or program, Goldstein said. “It’s a constellation of issues that address accountability and victim care and climate and culture. So what you want to do is you want to create a framework where you can address that holistically.”

Air Force and Space Force

In fiscal 2021, the Department of the Air Force had 1,700 reports of sexual assault, up 2 percent from the previous year “and the highest recorded value in the 14-year history of the SAPR program,” according to the branch’s annual report. Department officials suggested the increase may be due to victims feeling more comfortable coming forward.

The Air Force also has started several new programs, including one that brings together various response resources and offices into a sort of “one-stop shop,” where victims of sexual assault, sexual harassment, domestic violence, or stalking can go to get the services they need, said Andrea Bryant, deputy director of the department’s Integrated Resilience Office. That pilot program started Aug. 1 at seven installations, and will run until the end of January.

Another related program is “all about ensuring that anyone who comes forward to receive help never hears, ‘I’m not the right person to help you,’” Bryant said. And the department has expanded their victim-advocacy-support services to include victims of sexual harassment as well as of sexual assault.

But she said there is “a lot” more to come focusing on prevention, including a dedicated prevention workforce of more than 400 new employees. Though all the services must hire a prevention team, Bryant said the Air Force “kind of led the way,” in that it already—since 2015—had violence prevention workers who were focused on suicide prevention, so they expanded the program to include sexual assault, sexual harassment, domestic violence, workplace violence, child abuse, and other related crimes.

“It is a multi-phased approach that’s going to take us until 2026 to fully implement and bring everybody on board,” but the team will focus on “research-based prevention practices” that have been shown to work, she said.

“We don't just want to be doing something to be doing something. We want to make sure we're doing the right something that's going to have the results desired: actually preventing these behaviors,” Bryant said. “We’re responsible for cultivating a culture of dignity and respect, where all feel welcome and supported, and where those corrosive behaviors aren't tolerated. And when you have sexual assault occur, it breaks that down. How do you feel like you're in a culture of dignity and respect when an assault or harassment is occurring in the unit?”

A year and a half after the Independent Review Commission released its report, the services still have a lot to do. And Bryant said that from her perspective, “Time is not on our side, because everybody wants everything yesterday.”

Still, she said, she believes that “we’re going to see things get a lot better over the course of the next several years. It’s just the time to actually implement [the new programs] and get them up and running. And most of them are going to take four or five years of building up the workforce and building up the resources and being able to implement them and have them be sustainable.”

Read Part 1 of The Threat Within. Part 3 will be published on Fri., Dec. 9.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.