NBC News: Sexual Assault Reports Up By 50 Percent: Pentagon
NBC News reports:
Reported sexual assaults in the military rose a staggering 50 percent last year over 2012, the Defense Department said Thursday, a rise it attributed to Pentagon efforts to persuade victims to step forward and not an actual increase in assaults.
The annual report on sexual assaults is the first since the Pentagon undertook a renewed high-visibility campaign last year to clamp down on them and to encourage victims not to stay silent in the macho military environment.
“There is no indication that this increase in reporting constitutes an increase in crime,” Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Snow, head of the Pentagon’s sexual assault prevention programs, said at a news conference Thursday with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. “We assess that this unprecedented increase is consistent with a growing confidence in the response systems.”
