Chuck Hagel, U.S. Secretary of Defense

Chuck Hagel, U.S. Secretary of Defense

Back in May, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel directed initiatives aimed at addressing sexual assault in the military. Today, he released a statement announcing additional measures that are being implemented immediately. They are listed below.
• Creating a legal advocacy program in each military service that will provide legal representation to sexual assault victims throughout the judicial process;
• Ensuring that pretrial investigative hearings of sexual assault-related charges are conducted by judge advocates general (JAG) officers;
• Providing commanders with options to reassign or transfer a member who is accused of committing a sexual assault or related offense in order to eliminate continued contact while respecting the rights of both victims and the accused;
• Requiring timely follow-up reports on sexual assault incidents and responses to be given to the first general or flag officer within the chain of command;
• Directing DoD’s inspector general to regularly evaluate closed sexual assault investigations;
• Standardizing prohibitions on inappropriate behavior between recruiters and trainers and their recruits and trainees across the department, and;
• Developing and proposing changes to the Manual for Courts-Martial that would allow victims to give input during the sentencing phase of courts-martial.
To further this discussion, there will be a track called Ending Sexual Violence in the Military at the National Sexual Assault Conference this year.
Read the full press release here: http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=16205