Veterans Say: Military Reform Bills to Stop Sexual Assault Need Work
This statement was written by Maggie Baisley, founder of Reclaim Justice Movement, with input from members of About Face. If you are a sexual assault survivor and need help, see the information below for resources. Join our campaign to stop sexual assault in the military by clicking here.
Two bills aimed at addressing military sexual violence called the I am Vanessa Guillén Act and the Military Justice Improvement And Increasing Prevention Act (MJIIPA) were recently introduced in Congress. While it is encouraging to see movement on this issue after decades of political neglect, these bills reflect a shallow approach to reform that fails to grapple with military sexual violence at its root.
Similar past measures have not moved the needle on rates of violence since the Department of Defense started keeping track; it is our assessment that these are also unlikely to affect overall rates of military interpersonal violence.
The current, pervasive criminal-punishment approach was never equipped or intended to address these issues. The origins and historical uses were about protecting private property. Rape itself, conceived as only affecting women, was originally considered a property crime against a husband or father. This kind of gendered commodification of bodies is racialized. Europeans systematically leveraged rape and sexual degradation as a tool of colonization which continues to manifest today. The historical connection between the concept of white women’s sexual purity and racist tropes of Black men fuels a focus on the criminal-legal approach. Emmett Till, a Black 14-year-old child, was lynched in 1955 for flirting with a white woman. In another infamous example, The Central Park Five, a group of Black and Latino children, were falsely accused of rape and assault in 1989 and each spent between 6 and 13 years in prison after later being exonerated.
The historical origins and current trends suggest that the criminal-legal approach to sexual violence does the not have the capacity to respond for today’s calls for racial and gender equity and safety from violence.
Therefore, we call for a complete shift in the response to sexual violence that is responsive to both movements against sexual and racial violence. These bills continue to focus on an expensive and ill-equipped adversarial system that is not trauma-informed and never has reduced violence despite years of data. We describe the bills in more detail below.
I am Vanessa Guillén Act
This bill is based on the myth that the commander is the main part of the process that leads to low conviction rates, insufficient response, or “racial disparities” (i.e., racism). This rationale is a myth because the civilian system has an estimated .01% conviction rate for sexual violence with large scale race differences in conviction and sentencing and yet does not involve commanders. The bill generally expands the ability to punish individuals for sexual harassment and assault.
Though we believe it is positive to take sexual harassment more seriously, increasing punishment will likely mostly affect enlisted people of color. Punishment, as a passive process, has never been shown to change behavior in a sustained way.
One positive change, i.e., being able to sue the military, may be a useful tool to combat power-based violence and the structure of the system. That said, making a claim against the military will likely be a long and resource heavy process like any civil suit involves and does not substitute for building a new system that makes us all safer from violence. Bolded below are the portions of the bill that may be helpful:
- Remove the commanders from the decision-making process to prefer sexual offense related charges
- Creates a standalone offense for military sexual harassment punishable by the UCMJ
- Allows Service members to confidentially report sexual harassment so that Commanders will receive that information regarding individuals in their units
- Establishes and trains independent sexual assault and harassment investigators
- Allows Service members to sue the government for damages after sexual assault
- Requires the Department of Defense and the Government Accountability Office to conduct separate evaluations of the SHARP program
- Puts civilian leadership in charge of the SHARP program
- Requires a study on reasons that Service members become absent without leave (AWOL) or have unauthorized absence
The Military Justice Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act of 2021
This bill further clarifies the specifics of removing commanders from the decision-making process of prosecuting sex assault cases. We bold the potentially positive aspects of the bill that focus on training and information. Of course, the utility of this measure depends on what type of resources and information are offered.
- Establishes a separate court-martial convening authority for each branch of the Department of Defense and the Coast Guard that shifts the responsibility from the Chain of Command for all felony-level offenses
- Requires branches to offer more specialized training to attorneys who prosecute sexual and domestic violence cases
- Requires all officers and senior enlisted leaders to complete training equivalent to SHARP Victim Advocates before being considered for promotion to O-5 or E-9
- Require increase general prevention training for sexual assault for ROTC cadets and service academies
- Increase physical security of all bases by checking security cameras, locks, and points of entry
A Better Alternative
We firmly believe that our response to the sexual violence needs to focus on prevention in ensuring that individuals have basic resources to exist safely in the world (e.g., financially) and the daily habits and skills to take responsibility for harm that can build in larger capacity. We also need systemic responses that center on the Survivor’s needs and the effect on the community rather than an adversarial process that often harms every person involved. Our proposal is consistent with restorative and transformative justice principles which focus on restoring basic dignity or transforming the conditions that led to the harm.
We believe that a report of sexual harassment or assault does not deserve an investigation or scrutiny, but rather a trauma-informed response that may include community accountability process.
Transformative Justice Resources
https://project-nia.org/mission-history
https://www.creative-interventions.org/toolkit/
https://just-practice.org/fumbling-towards-repair
Help for Sexual Assault Survivors
RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline 1–800–656–4673
Veteran Crisis Line 1 800 273 8255 and Press 1 or text to 838255 *****(note that if you reveal private information, that can end up in your medical record with the Veteran Crisis Line)******
