Defense Secretary Recommends Independent Prosecutions for Military Sexual Assaults

(CN) — Even as some members of the top brass in the U.S. military say the move may undermine discipline and order, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III said he will recommend sexual assault cases no longer be prosecuted with the involvement of military commanders but instead be pursued independently.

In a statement issued Tuesday, Austin, who spent a more than four decades in the Army, said he backed a shakeup of the Uniform Code of Military Justice to include an “independent prosecution system” that would handle other crimes as well, such as domestic violence.

“First, we will work with Congress to amend the Uniform Code of Military Justice, removing the prosecution of sexual assaults and related crimes from the military chain of command,” Austin said.

According to the Department of Defense Inspector General, sexual assaults in the military remain one of the institution’s persistent problems, which can leave victims with post-traumatic stress disorder and cause them to eventually leave the service.

In fiscal year 2020, the Department of Defense said 6,290 service members reported an instance of sexual assault that occurred during their military service, an increase from fiscal year 2019 when the department received 6,236 such reports.  

Austin’s statement came shortly after he received a finished report by a commission formed earlier this year to study the issue of sexual assault within the U.S. military. It was headed by Lynn Rosenthal, the former White House advisor on violence against women

Addressing sexual assault is reportedly one of Austin’s biggest issues to tackle and it comes after the commission made its initial recommendation in April.

“As I made clear on my first full day in office, this is a leadership issue,” Austin said. “And we will lead. Our people depend upon it. They deserve nothing less.”

Austin is scheduled to testify later this week on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are considering a bill called the Military Justice Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act.

Opposing the proposed legislation, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, a Republican and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the bill’s proposed changes would unnecessarily complicate the military justice system.

The lawmaker in his statement shared letters of some of the U.S. military’s top commanders that expressed reservation about the bill.

Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted in a letter to Inhofe the military has “lost the trust and confidence” of many of the service members in its ranks because it failed to sufficiently address the issue of sexual assault. But the bill being considered by Congress would remove commanders from the decision to prosecute not only in instances of sexual misconduct but offenses such as robbery, arson and extortion.

“I urge caution to ensure any changes to commander authority to enforce discipline be rigorously analyzed, evidence-based, and narrow in scope, limited only to sexual assault and related offenses,” Milley wrote.

In a statement responding to the letters sent by the military commanders, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York, said the commanders’ letters were disappointing.

“From racially integrating the armed forces to enabling women to serve in combat to allowing LGBTQ service members to serve openly, the chain of command has always fought to protect the status quo, just as they are doing here,” she said.

Follow Daniel Jackson on Twitter.

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