The number of reported sexual assaults across the military inched up by about 1% last year, as a sharp decline in Army numbers offset large increases in the other three services, The Associated Press reports. The small overall uptick is much less than the 13% jump the Defense Department saw in 2021, but it’s overshadowed by the fact the Air Force, the Navy and the Marine Corps all had more reports last year than the previous year. Because the Army is much larger than the other three services, its 9% drop in reported sexual assaults last year drove the overall military increase down. That large decrease comes a year after Army leaders saw a nearly 26% jump in reports involving soldiers — the largest increase for that service since 2013. The Air Force saw the largest increase in reported assaults during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, at 13%, while the Navy had a 9% jump and the Marine Corps went up by about 4%.
Overall, there were more than 8,942 reports of sexual assaults involving service members during the 2022 fiscal year, a slight increase over the 8,866 the year before. The Pentagon and the military services have come under increasing criticism and pressure from members of Congress to reduce sexual assaults and harassment in the military. The services have long struggled to come up with programs to prevent sexual assaults and to encourage reporting, including new initiatives over the past year. Defense officials have long argued that an increase in reported assaults is a positive trend because so many people are reluctant to report them, both in the military and in society as a whole. Greater reporting, they say, shows there is more confidence in the reporting system, greater comfort with the support for victims, and a growing number of offenders who are being held accountable. It's unclear whether the latest increase in reports represents a growing problem or whether those who say they were assaulted were just more willing to come forward.
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