ch: Our Values in Action

Ideas: Finally Implement Sexual-Assault Tracking System

The problem: According to The Hill (DC) newspaper, in 2005, “4 percent of female Air Force cadets, 5 percent of female Naval Academy midshipmen and 6 percent of female cadets at West Point reported being victims of sexual assault in the previous year.” Sexual assaults at the Air Force academy have drawn considerable media attention in the past several years.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) is pushing for the Defense Department to implement the Defense Incident-Based Reporting System. More:

The congresswoman, who comes from a long line of family military service, is pressing the Pentagon to implement promptly an incident-reporting system that would help track sexual-assault problems in the military.

The Department of Defense has had 18 years to implement the Defense Incident-Based Reporting System (DIBRS). Pentagon officials say it will be fully functional next summer.

That is not good enough for Maloney, who with fellow Democrat Chris Van Hollen (Md.) recently introduced a free-standing bill to force the Pentagon to implement the system by Jan. 1.

In the bill, Maloney and Van Hollen take the drastic measure of deducting $1,000 from the secretary of defense’s pay for each day the system is overdue after Jan. 1. (The bill does not call for the secretary to dip into his own pockets after his salary is depleted.)

The bill, of course, won’t pass. But the Defense Department shouldn’t drag its feet on something like this—precisely what Rep. Maloney is trying to highlight with the bill.