Polling Specialists Question Pentagon Sex-Assault Survey
By David Lerman - May 16, 2013 9:38 PM ET
Findings from a Pentagon survey on sexual assault in the military, which triggered outrage about what the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff calls a “crisis,” may be based on scanty response rates, questionable data and broad definitions of what constitutes abuse.
The confidential poll of active-duty troops has been conducted three times -- in 2006, 2010 and 2012 -- with varying results that show the challenge of even measuring the extent of sexual assault in the ranks, much less stopping it.
Extrapolating survey results to the entire force, the latest Defense Department report last week suggested there were 26,000 incidents of unwanted sexual contact in 2012, a 35 percent increase over two years. The previous survey in 2010 had shown a 44 percent plunge since 2006.
In contrast to those estimates, the annual number of military sexual assault victims in actual reports to authorities rose 13 percent from 2010 to 2012, and 14 percent from 2006 to 2010.
While nobody has questioned the importance of preventing sexual assaults, survey shortcomings may make it hard to gauge the Pentagon’s progress.
“This is an extremely important topic, and it deserves to be measured very carefully,” said Paul Lavrakas, a pollster and president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, who said he’s troubled that three years of survey data produced such different estimates.
“When you see them jump around like that, the first thing that comes to mind is there’s something wrong with the numbers,” said Lavrakas, who said he hasn’t reviewed the Pentagon’s survey methodology.
Action Sought
The survey’s estimate of a 35 percent increase in sexual assaults since 2010, along with allegations that two soldiers charged with combating sexual abuse were themselves abusing women, have sparked demands for action. President Barack Obama called Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the Joint Chiefs to the White House yesterday for a meeting, and a bipartisan group of Senate and House members proposed legislation that would relieve military commanders of the power to prosecute sexual abuse cases.
The existence of sexual abuse in the military is undisputed and has persisted for generations. As women make up a growing percentage of the force and are being considered for combat assignments, the Pentagon may lack solid information on whether the problem is increasing or diminishing, said David Segal, a professor of sociology and director of the Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland.
‘Squishy’ Data
“The data are squishy,” Segal said. “I would be loath to infer trends from two or three data points.”
Army Major General Gary Patton, director of the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, defended the survey’s accuracy.
“I got a team of Ph.D.s and statisticians that look at this every year,” Patton said at a Pentagon news conference last week. “It’s the same questions, the methodology is consistent from 2006 to 2010 to 2012.”
While public and political attention has focused on the persistent problem of men in uniform abusing women, the survey found that more victims of sexual assault and harassment in the military are male than female, largely because men make up about 85 percent of the total force.
_______________________________
We have heard very little about the team of researchers who conducted the survey. An obvious omission is the lack of comparison to other populations.
Their are about 2.3 million servicemen and women, regular and reserve, in the Department of Defense. This is equivalent to a large American city and would be the forth largest city in the United States. A comparison of crime levels of the DOD to large American cities should be conducted.
It would be wonderful if their were no murders and no sexual assaults in the DOD and in American cities. It would also be nice if their were no crime in the world. It is not likely to happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment