Pentagon's annual report on sexual assault shows alarming rise...

[DreamGypsy]

From NBC News (though I maintain NBC's use of "alarming" is totally wrong, see below) (emphasis mine):

On Tuesday, the Pentagon will release the annual report on sexual assaults in the military, which shows some startling numbers.

While the report will show that the number of reported assaults in fiscal year 2012 rose only 6 percent to 3,374 — up from 3,192 a year before — the number of people who made an anonymous claim that they were sexually assaulted but never reported the attack skyrocketed from 19,000 in FY11 to 26,000 in FY12.

Members of Congress will be briefed on the report early tomorrow afternoon, and then Major General Gary Patton, the Director of the DoD Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO), will brief the media.

Embarrassingly, the report is being made public just a day after it was revealed that the Air Force's sexual-abuse prevention chief has himself been charged with sexual assault.

I think the increase from 19K to 26K 'anonymous claims' of sexual assault is GREAT news. It doesn't mean that 7,000 more assaults occurred, it means that the stigma associated with assault has changed, so that 7,000 more victims were willing to take that first step of reporting, anonymously, that they have suffered abuse in the military. Perhaps, if support for abuse victims continues to increase, then the number of military personnel who report, or anonymously report, their assault(s) will reach an accurate number, representing the real problem. Perhaps, for the first time in 237 years ...(the number of years since 1776)...the true extent of the problem will surface.

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. I had a different reaction after seeing this on the CBS nightly news tonight - outrage.

any number greater than zero is too many. That this is happening at the level that it is, is just one more sign of how sick a society we are....



but I do understand your point as well....which is well-made.