The Debt Deal and Military Sexual Violence
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By Brittany Stalsburg
Brittany Stalsburg is a political science PhD candidate and Policy Associate for SWAN. Her academic work focuses on parenthood, gender, and political candidacy.
The debt deal seems to be nearing a compromise, but neither side of the aisle is particularly happy. While those on the left are lamenting budget changes to beloved social programs like Medicare, Republicans are decrying massive defense cuts which, depending on the final outcome, could total more than $600 billion. For weeks, veterans and veterans groups have been worried over what this deal would mean for their benefits and healthcare; even if veterans programs survive this particular compromise, it is clear that in the coming years the Veterans Administration (VA) will have to do more with fewer resources than they actually need. With the influx of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the annual cost of caring for OEF/OIF veterans will more than triple in the next decade, from $1.9 billion in 2010 to as much as $8.4 billion in 2020.
One way to reduce the extraordinary sums spent through the Department of Defense (DOD) and VA is to eliminate the rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment crisis that infects the U.S military. The sexual violence problem is an expensive one, and high costs incur for both the DOD and VA. Although military sexual assaults are notoriously under-prosecuted, those that are brought to court-martial use a lot of taxpayer money to try rapists.
The DOD estimates that legal expenses resulting from military sexual assault cases average $40,000 per case. With 481 sexual assault-related courts-martial in 2010 alone, DOD legal expenses totaled more than $19 million for just one year. Add to that the estimated $872 million the VA spent in 2010 on treatment for sexual assault survivors, eliminating sexual violence in military ranks could save taxpayers $1 billion in annual costs. And this figure does not even come close to accounting for myriad other expenses of the sexual violence crisis, including disability benefits for veterans who suffer from PTSD, depression, and other health conditions that resulted from being raped, sexually assaulted, or sexually harassed in the military. The median disability compensation rating for veterans who have experienced Military Sexual Trauma (MST) and have PTSD is 70%, which translates to at least a $1,228 monthly payment. Given that 108,121 veterans screened positive for MST in 2010, one could only imagine what the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) spends on disability compensation for survivors of sexual violence in the military.
Costs related to the strength and readiness of the U.S. military also incur because of the rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment crisis. Not surprisingly, studies have found that servicemembers who were raped, sexually assaulted, sexually harassed, or discriminated against in the military leave their careers earlier than servicemembers who were not. Turnover in the military is expensive with attrition conservatively estimated to cost between $29,998 and $53,251 per lost servicemember. With over 19,000 incidents of sexual assault estimated to have occurred in 2010 alone, the military is doling out large sums of money to recruit and train new members to replace the sexual violence survivors who understandably end their military careers early.
The costs of the military sexual violence crisis are already overwhelming, yet many more resources are needed to prevent rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment from occurring as well as for the care that survivors so desperately need. Unlike in the civilian world, the military has no sex offender registry that could be used to alert servicemembers to the presence of sexual predators in their unit, yet establishing this sort of database costs money. And although the VHA and VBA are already spending millions on veterans with MST, many veterans are not getting the care they need nor the compensation to which they are entitled. With no end in sight to the budget crisis, it is obvious that the DOD and VA are not going to be able to adequately address the sexual violence crisis nor care for the men and women veterans who suffer from physical and mental health conditions associated with the sexual brutality they experienced while in uniform.
Going forward, while it is clear that more resources are necessary to combat the sexual violence crisis, it is also clear that the military needs to be radically reformed to stop sexual violence from happening in the first place. Not only will an end to rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment in the military alleviate financial stress of the DOD and VA, but more importantly it will also reduce the devastating personal costs that veterans must bear. As a country, we should be outraged that our servicemembers are more likely to be raped by their own peers than killed by enemy fire. Recovery from sexual violence can take a lifetime, and we as a nation cannot afford— both financially or morally— to bear these costs.
As Vote Looms, Leaders Court Skeptics – The New York Times
The Debt Deal and Defense Spending – The Washington Post
Cost of Treating Veterans Will Rise Long Past Wars – The New York Times
Sexual Assault in the Military “Jaw-Dropping” Lawmaker Says – CNN
The Effects of Sexual Assault on Turnover in the Military: Time-Dependent Modeling – APA PsychNet
Looking at this blog from a different viewpoint: For the mean time, while resources are low and debt is high, you are indirectly condoning military personnel to not admit and prosecute rape and sexual assault because it adds to the debt defecit. I get what you are saying, but isn’t it more likely for the military officers to look the other way and hush up the situation to save money rather than try to miraculously end sexual assault all together?