Types of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment in the Active-Duty Army

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schell, Terry L.

Contributor:

Calkins, Avery

Cefalu, Matthew

Collins, Rebecca L.

Cottrell, Linda

Meadows, Sarah O.

Language:

English

Place of Publication:

RAND Corporation 2023

Summary:

The Department of Defense Workplace and Gender Relations Survey of Active Duty Members (WGRA) assesses whether service members experienced behaviors consistent with sexual assault or sexual harassment in the past year. For the most-serious experiences identified by respondents, the WGRA also measures a wide variety of victim characteristics, perpetrator characteristics, specific behaviors, and the context in which events occurred. This report describes the results of analyses run within the Army sample of the 2018 WGRA. These analyses sorted the sexual assault and sexual harassment experiences of victims into separate types based on the behaviors involved, the context and location of the events, the perpetrator characteristics, and the victim characteristics. This process defined five types of sexual assault and eight types of sexual harassment. The report describes these types of sexual assault and sexual harassment and assesses how common each type is in the Army. The report describes a breadth of both sexual assault and sexual harassment experiences that go beyond those typically discussed in prevention materials, and that might cause some to reassess common stereotypes about sexual assault and sexual harassment. This more detailed description of these experiences should inform Army prevention and response efforts to ensure that they reflect the full range of experiences that are prevalent in the Army.