USA Today: Prosecuting rapes in the ranks: Our view
The USA Today Editorial Board calls on Congress to support Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s Military Justice Improvement Act:
Prosecutions alone won’t stop rape in the military. Several preventive measures are needed. These include stronger leadership; training for bystanders in how to intervene to get their buddies out of risky situations; and training on how to avoid dangerous circumstances, a controversial step often misinterpreted as “blaming the victim.”
The Pentagon and individual services have some promising prevention programs, including one at the Great Lakes naval station. But none will be taken seriously or succeed if perpetrators aren’t prosecuted. And the current military system, in which prosecution decisions are made by commanders, simply has not worked.
The decision should be put in the hands of professional military prosecutors, as Gillibrand’s measure would require. That’s how major criminal cases are prosecuted in the civilian world and by the militaries of many U.S. allies, including Australia, Canada, Great Britain and Israel.
