***STATEMENT*** PROTECT OUR DEFENDERS SAYS DELAYED PENTAGON REPORT PUT TROOPS AND COMMUNITIES NEAR BASES AT RISK FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 21, 2018

***STATEMENT***

PROTECT OUR DEFENDERS SAYS DELAYED PENTAGON REPORT PUT TROOPS AND COMMUNITIES NEAR BASES AT RISK FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT

Washington, D.C. — Today, Protect Our Defenders (POD) responded to the Pentagon’s long delayed report which evaluated military bases by their risk of sexual assault. The Pentagon finally released the report from RAND which collected data from 2014 to present day and was collected through more than 170,000 surveys of active-duty service members.

Col. Don Christensen (ret.), the former Chief Prosecutor of the United State Air Force and President of Protect Our Defenders, released the following statement:

“By failing to release the report in a timely fashion, military brass appeared more concerned with massaging the data to look better than actually reducing sexual assaults. Knowing that the Marines and Army have multiple installations where over 500 soldiers and Marines are sexually assaulted in a single year is jaw dropping. It is unbelievable the Pentagon would not immediately make this data available to the men and women serving on those installations and the citizens in the local communities next to those bases.

“The findings that show a correlation between sexual harassment and sexual assault are particularly telling. It confirms what we often hear from survivors that they worked in a hostile environment prior to being sexually assaulted. The military must take sexual harassment seriously and that starts by holding those at the top accountable.”

USA Today: Military report: Young women on bases, sailors on ships at greatest risk for sexual assault
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/09/21/military-sexual-assault-victims-likely-young-larger-bases-ships/1377951002/

Military Times: Sexual assault: Here are the bases where troops are most at risk
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/09/21/sexual-assault-here-are-the-bases-where-troops-are-most-at-risk/

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