Sexual assault, harassment spikes at military academies, strategies fail to stem crisis
WASHINGTON – Incidents of sexual assault at U.S. military academies spiked nearly 50 percent during the last school year despite years of focus on the issue and declarations of zero-tolerance, according to results of a survey conducted by the Pentagon.
The number of students reporting unwanted sexual contact totaled 747 during the 2017-18 academic year compared with 507 in 2015-16, according to anonymous surveys of cadets and midshipmen. Unwanted sexual contact ranges from groping to rape.
"We’re disheartened and disappointed that the things and the strategies that we’ve employed just really aren’t getting the results that we want," Nathan Galbreath, deputy director of the Pentagon's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, told USA TODAY on Thursday.
About 16 percent of women and 2 percent of men at the military's premier military colleges reported being sexually assaulted, Galbreath said.
The survey at the academies to determine the prevalence of sexual assault is done every other year. For the 2013-14 school year, 327 students responded that they had been victims of such contact, less than half the figure reported in the latest year.
Another troubling finding: about 50 percent of women students reported being sexually harassed in the 2017-18 school year, up from 48 percent compared with the previous report. For men, 16 percent reported sexual harassment last year compared with 12 percent in the last report.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/sexual-assault-harassment-spikes-at-military-academies-strategies-fail-to-stem-crisis/ar-BBT04jb?li=BBnb7Kz