According to a yearly report released this month by the Department of Defense (DOD), the amount of sexual assault complaints in the military increased 13% in the fiscal year 2021, that also included eight months of the Biden Presidency.
The DOD acquired 8,866 sexual assault allegations involving military personnel in fiscal year 2021, up 13% from the 7,816 reports submitted in fiscal year 2020, according to the report, which is mandated by Congress yearly.
Given that not all of the sexual assaults are recorded, the DOD calculates that 35,875 active-duty military members — roughly 16,620 men and 19,255 women were sexually assaulted in fiscal year 2021. The service members who were most at risk were the junior enlisted personnel.
The total amount of sexual assault cases is at the highest level since records began to be kept in 2006.
Despite the Biden admin’s early emphasis on the subject, the less than 100 instances of extremism in the military pale in comparison to the thousands of documented sexual assault cases.
While Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin did establish a commission to investigate sexual assault in late Feb. 2021, he first established a Working Counter Extremism Organization and directed a “stand-down” on extremism across the whole force.
Additionally, the Biden Pentagon has penalized more soldiers for incomplete vaccinations than for sexual assault.
The DOD, in fiscal year 2021, took punitive measures in 2,683 sexual assault reports. It has so far expelled 7,444 troops for not having received the necessary vaccinations over the course of nearly a year.
Gen. Patrick Ryder Air Force Brig., the Pentagon’s press sec., described the rise in sexual assault allegations as “tragic and depressing.”
He stated that the DOD and Sec. of Defense Lloyd Austin are “already implementing enormous organizational and cultural transformation to directly deal with this problem,” adding that “We can and will correct this trend.”
A 25.6% increase in cases of sexual assault were reported in the Army, a 9.2% increase in the Navy, a 2.4% increase in the Air Force, and a 1.7% increase in the Marine Corps.
The DOD data also revealed that, in comparison to the fiscal year 2018, fewer people reported having been sexually assaulted overall. One in five military people reported a sexual assault to a DOD official in the fiscal year 2021, a decrease from one in three military personnel in the 2016 and 2018 fiscal years.
According to the study, the DOD evaluates sexual assault progress using two key factors: prevalence is the (the estimated amount of service members who have experienced a sexual assault) and the reporting rate which is (the proportion of victims who came forward and reported the assault). The Biden admin is failing on both counts.
The proportion of soldiers expressing confidence in the military’s sexual assault response system has likewise drastically decreased. Female soldiers’ confidence decreased from 66% in 2018 to only 39% in 2021. During the same time span, male troops’ confidence fell from 82 to 63%.
For fiscal year 2022, the Biden admin. sought $388.2 million for all of its programs aimed at preventing and responding to sexual assaults; for fiscal year 2023, they are asking for $940 million.
