Sexual assault (SA) in the military remains a pervasive problem, with an estimated 20,500 assaults occurring in 2018, an increase from the 14,900 estimated assaults occurring in 2016. Although the incidence rate of sexual victimization among women in the military has been higher than the incidence rate of sexual victimization among men since the Department of Defense (DoD) started collecting these data, until recently, the annual absolute number of male victims has outweighed the absolute number of female victims. Men face many of the same outcomes of experiencing SA as women, including decreased mental and physical health, greater risk-taking behavior, and negative interpersonal consequences. Men, however, also face unique consequences such as questioning their masculinity and sexuality. Men may underreport SA due to social stigma, perceived rape myths, and internal conflict; male Service members face specific barriers to reporting SA, given military culture. Currently, however, there are no programs to specifically prevent sexual victimization among men.
According to the 2019 DoD SA Response and Prevention Office report, assaults were categorized as “hazing” or “bullying” by 57% of male victims and 29% of female victims. SAs defined by victims as acts of hazing also involved more perpetrators compared to assaults not categorized as such. Based on statistical and anecdotal evidence, it is clear that men often experience sexual assault under the guise of hazing. Therefore, programming that addresses sexual victimization among men should also specifically address hazing.
There is no literature to our knowledge that specifically addresses hazing in terms of SA in the military, with reports/publications typically addresses hazing broadly with an acknowledgment that SA is a type of hazing behavior. The similarities between hazing and sexual assault are salient, as both are types of interpersonal violence, rooted in power and control, contain issues of consent, and are imbedded with rigid gender norms. Thus, the most scientifically sound approach toward addressing hazing and SA would be to adapt current, effective hazing prevention programming to a military population.
The Hazing Prevention Framework (HPF) was developed by Allan and colleagues as a comprehensive preventative method to eliminate hazing that has been scientifically tested, refined, and widely used on college campuses. The short-term outcome of this project is to adapt the HPF to a military context while specifically addressing SA, resulting in the development of the HPF for the Military, or HPF-M. The HPF-M will include specific recommendations for implementation, including ways to address barriers, and will be deemed acceptable, useful, and feasible by military leadership and ready for adoption at military installations. The long-term outcome would be for the HPF-M to be adapted at military bases across the nation.
Ultimately, the HPF-M, if implemented at military bases, has the ability to reduce rates of SA in the military by preventing SA that occur as acts of hazing. This project has specific applicability to reducing sexual assault in the public at large; however, as it can provide a novel framework for addressing the intersection between hazing and sexual assault, which does not currently exist. This overarching framework could be applied to various groups in which hazing is likely to occur; thus, this grant has applicability to reducing sexual violence as hazing in multiple contexts. |
