In his opening remarks to the Senate Armed Services Committee on the President’s 2022 Budget Proposal, the nation’s new Secretary of Defense, Lloyd J. Austin, said that he has already received recommendations from an independent commission to address the horrific problems related to the sexual abuse of both women and men in the military. He is currently reviewing the commission’s recommendations, and he pledged to “truly and fully address the scourge of sexual assault in our force…because what we’ve been doing hasn’t been working…The number of sexual assaults are still too high…and confidence in our system is still too low.”

This serious problem, Austin said on May 15, “are attacks by our own people…on our own people. Insider attacks. And they tear at the very fabric of who we are and what we represent to each other and to the American people.”

A May 7 release from the Department of Defense DOD News summarized the work of the six-week-old commission and gave a status report. “The Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault in the Military has presented initial recommendations to Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III that would take the responsibility of prosecuting sexual assault offenses out of commanders’ hands, and Austin and Army Gen. Mark A. Milley are willing to contemplate the change.”

“The current situation is not working,” the General said. "We estimate based on some surveys that there were probably 20,000 men and women who were sexually assaulted in the United States military last year. That's one percent of the force…And that number hasn't significantly been reduced over time.

“Despite everything the department and the services have done, the number of assaults has not changed. The commission is providing evidence-based recommendations that may fundamentally change the process,” Wiley said.

It is, however, unclear what and how much of the military justice system will be removed from the chain of command. On March 1, Austin told the Federal News Network that he wanted the commission to concentrate on accountability, prevention, climate and culture. The Network concluded, “the Secretary does not appear inclined at the moment” to remove the investigation and prosecution of sexual offenses from the current system. Instead, he believes they should “look for ways to improve the handling of sexual assault under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ),” as well as the “feasibility, opportunities, and risks from changes to the commander’s role in prosecution.”

There is no doubt that the Defense Department leadership knows just how much change is needed. The Department of Defense Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military: Fiscal Year 2019 documents 6,888 reports of sexual assault on service member victims. Many told their heartbreaking personal stories to Protect Our Defenders, a national human rights organization that posted many survivor stories on its website. There are accounts by women who joined all branches of the military because they sincerely wanted to serve their country.

The sexual assault survivors tell of forced oral sex, constant harassment by “those with more rank than me,” stalking, involuntary drinking, being punished for “not playing along,” physical harm, and other examples of how they were “terrorized, raped, drugged, and tortured” just because they were women in the military.

And the sexual assault crisis is not limited to women in service. The New York Times reports that “On average, about 10,000 men are sexually assaulted in the American military each year, according to Pentagon statistics.” A 2019 article by Dave Philips featured stories by six ex-military men who told how they were sodomized and forced to perform oral sex. The victims, they observed, are often young and low-ranking. Even If they had the courage to report the crimes, the perpetrators often told them, “If you report this, no one will believe you.”

All too often, the perpetrators of these sexual crimes are not punished. They are tried and sentenced by those in their own chain of command because, in the current military justice system, commanders, not prosecutors, make the key decisions. There are pervasive conflicts of interest, and the current system is reminiscent of what happens when the fox is put in charge of the hen house. According to Protect Our Defenders, military commanders have all too often have been charged with “blatant unfairness and lack of professionalism…and violent disregard for the constitutional rights of our servicemembers.” Also, changes toward fairness have been “piecemeal” and have favored the accused over the victims.

The women on the Protect Our Defenders website back up these observations. One said that after she reported a rape to her commander, she was referred to a physician who “started drugging her with antidepressants.” Another said, “I was charged, sentenced, and confined by court-martial with no legal representation and not given the opportunity under due process of the law.” A third said her harassment after reporting sexual assault affected both her and her military husband. “When I sought help from the chaplain,” she said, “that made it worse because after that, we began to be followed by Military Police and they kept pulling me and my husband over on made-up violations.”

Statistics and stories like these are unacceptable to several senators, including Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), chair of the Senate Armed Services Personnel Committee and a bipartisan group of her colleagues including Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Mark Kelly) D-AZ). They have introduced the Military Justice Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act that would “professionalize how the military prosecutes serious crimes by moving the decision to prosecute from the chain of command to independent, trained, professional military prosecutors” and includes other provisions aimed at preventing sexual assault in the first place, such as better training and increased security measures. Gillibrand first introduced the bill in 2013.

Gillibrand’s recommendations are: (1) to move decision-making about the prosecution of serious crimes to independent, trained, and professional military prosecutors while leaving misdemeanors within the chain of command; (2) to ensure that DOD supports criminal investigators and military prosecutors; (3) to require the DOD Secretary to survey and improve the physical security of military installations and (4) to improve training and education on military sexual assault throughout the armed services.

Between Austin’s assurances that he has an open mind, the recommendations of the Independent Review Commission and the new bipartisan legislation, perhaps the safety, security and nightmarish consequences that follow sexual assault of our servicewomen and men will finally be a priority.