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(USGovernment-News.Com, June 08, 2013 ) Los Angeles, CA -- While chief officers of the Us Military noted that sexual assaults in the military were at a crisis level, they warned lawmakers against stripping commanders of of their power in the judicial system, asking them not to go too far with legislation.
The hearing comes after a wave of sexual assault scandals hit national news and new Pentagon data showing a steep rise in unwanted sexual contact but a steep decline in actual convictions.
These events have deeply embarrassed the military as of late, so in an exceptional display, top uniformed officers of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard, along with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with their most prestigious lawyers, all appeared at the Senate Armed Services Committee together to assure Congress they were taking the matter seriously.
While the chiefs want to lower the rates of sex crimes in the military, they want commanders to remain in control. But under proposed legislation by Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, responsibility for prosecuting sex crimes would be taken out of the victim’s chain of command altogether and given to special prosecutors.
Gen. Raymond Odierno, chief of staff of the Army, said that proposal could hurt unit cohesion and noted the importance of the commander to quickly “administer justice.”
A study that the Defense Department released in May estimated that cases of unwanted sexual contact in the military, from groping to rape on any level, rose 37 percent in all military branches in 2012, to about 26,000 cases from 19,000 in 2011.
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