By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of sexual assaults reported across the U.S. military dipped by nearly 4% last year, fueled by a significant drop in the Army, according to a new Pentagon report. It was the second year in a row with a decrease, reversing a troubling trend that has plagued the Defense Department for more than a decade.
Senior defense officials said that while the decline is a good sign, the number of reported assaults is still too high and the military needs to do more to get victims to report the often undisclosed crime.
According to the report, there were 8,195 reported sexual assaults in 2024 involving members of the military, compared with 8,515 in 2023. In 2022, there were 8,942 reported sexual assaults, a spike that triggered widespread alarm and led to new programs and an infusion of funding to try to combat the problem.
The overall decrease was due to a 13% drop in reported sexual assaults across the Army, which is the largest military service.
All the other services saw increases. The Navy had the largest jump of 4.3%, while the Air Force had a 2.2% increase and the Marine Corps rose by less than 1%.
Of the 8,195 total, there were 512 service members who reported an assault that happened before they entered the military. The Pentagon encourages reporting so that victims can get any support they need. In addition, 641 were civilians who said they were assaulted by a member of the military.
Uncertainty about impact of job cuts on sexual assault programs
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Nate Galbreath, director of the Pentagon’s sexual assault prevention and response office, said it’s still not clear how the Trump administration’s personnel and budget cuts will affect these programs. He said officials are asking for details on the number of assault prevention staff who have been laid off or who took any of the early retirement offers.
Andra Tharp, director of the command climate office, added that “when the hiring freeze went into effect, there were about 300 prevention workforce positions posted on USA jobs that are essentially on hold.” But, she said, some departments have been able to get exemptions.
FILE – The Pentagon is seen in this aerial view, in Washington, March 27, 2008. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
Galbreath said the department also is now able to link sexual assaults to military readiness. He said a survey showed that service members who had experienced assault were more likely to leave the military, be demoted, miss a promotion or have some other type of negative action put in their files than those who hadn’t been been victimized.
He said the survey followed troops who said in 2016 that they had experienced a sexual assault, and a group of others who did not.
As a result, he said the Defense Department is working to develop a recovery program to teach healthy coping skills and other assistance for victims. The department also has a Safe Helpline where troops can seek help.
Sexual harassment complaints rise
While reported assaults decreased, the number of sexual harassment complaints went from 2,980 in 2023 to 3,014 last year. Most were filed by female service members, and the vast majority of those accused were male.
The number of cases in which misconduct was substantiated increased a bit last year over the 2023 total. The number of discharges and administrative actions against alleged perpetrators continued to increase, and court-martial charges declined — both trends going back several years.
Officials noted that nearly three-quarters of the court-martial cases ended in convictions, a slight increase over the previous year.
Sexual assault reports in the military have gone up for much of the past decade, except for a tiny decrease in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown. Officials say they are optimistic about the recent decreases but say much more work needs to be done.
As in previous years, most sexual assault reports are filed by those between ages 18 and 24 and involve lower-ranking service members.
Impact of Pentagon changes
While it is difficult to point to any one reason for the two-year decline, the Defense Department has been making a series of changes over the past year that officials say may be contributing.
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The services were using more than $1 billion to improve programs and hire up to 2,500 personnel as part of a new “prevention workforce” and place them at military installations worldwide.
So far, about 1,400 have been hired, but that process has stalled due to the Trump administration’s budget and personnel cuts across the federal government. Defense officials said they are working to spread the existing workers around to lessen the gaps until more can be hired.
The latest report also reflects the first full year since new prosecution procedures have been in place, putting independent lawyers in charge of those decisions and sidelining commanders after years of pressure from Congress.
Officials said it is too soon to tell what effect those changes are having on prosecutions.
The Pentagon releases a report every year on the number of sexual assaults reported by or about troops. But because sexual assault is a highly underreported crime, the department also does a confidential survey every two years to get a clearer picture of the problem. That online survey came out last year, so it was not done this year.
Last year’s survey said more than 29,000 active-duty service members said they had experienced unwanted sexual contact in the previous year, compared with nearly 36,000 in the 2021 survey, according to several defense officials. The decrease was the first in eight years.
But officials said the survey also indicates that a large number of service members never file a report.
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 and greater comfort with the support for victims.
