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A DECADE AFTER the Pentagon began confronting rape in the ranks, the US military frequently fails to protect or provide justice to the children of service members when they are sexually assaulted by other children on base, an Associated Press investigation has found.
Reports of assaults and rapes among kids on military bases often die on the desks of prosecutors, even when an attacker confesses. Other cases don’t make it that far because criminal investigators shelve them, despite requirements they be pursued.
The Pentagon does not know the scope of the problem and does little to track it. AP was able to document nearly 600 sex assault cases on base since 2007 through dozens of interviews and by piecing together records and data from the military’s four main branches and school system.
Sexual violence occurs anywhere children and teens gather on base — homes, schools, playgrounds, food courts, even a chapel bathroom. Many cases get lost in a dead zone of justice, with neither victim nor offender receiving help.
“These are the children that we need to be protecting, the children of our heroes,” said Heather Ryan, a former military investigator.
Military law
The tens of thousands of kids who live on bases in the US and abroad are not covered by military law. The US Justice Department, which has jurisdiction over many military bases, isn’t equipped or inclined to handle cases involving juveniles, so it rarely takes them on.
Federal prosecutors, for example, pursued roughly one in seven juvenile sex offence cases that military investigators presented, according to AP’s review of about 100 investigative files from Navy and Marine Corps bases.
In one unprosecuted case from Japan, witnesses confirmed that a 17-year-old boy pulled a 17-year-old girl from a car in a school parking lot and took her to his residence, where she said he raped her. A medical exam of the girl found his semen.
On a US Army base in Germany, Leandra Mulla told investigators that her teenage ex-boyfriend dragged her to a secluded area and thrust his hand down her pants while forcibly trying to kiss her. Four years later, Mulla still wonders what came of her report.
Offenders, meanwhile, typically receive neither therapy nor punishment, and some are shuffled off to other installations or into the civilian world.
In North Carolina, at Camp Lejeune, the coastal training ground for US Marines, a nine-year-old boy admitted to Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigators that he had fondled toddlers in his home and classmates at Heroes Elementary School. He said he couldn’t help himself.
Military child abuse specialists couldn’t help him either — they intervene only when the alleged abuser is a parent or other caretaker. A federal prosecutor declined to take action twice.
‘Designed to kill people’
A dozen current or former prosecutors and military investigators described to AP how policies within the Pentagon and Justice Department thwarted efforts to help victims and rehabilitate offenders.
“The military is designed to kill people and break things,” said former Army criminal investigator Russell Strand, one of the military’s pioneering experts on sexual assault.
The primary mission, it’s not to deal with kids sexually assaulting kids on federal property.
Sexual assault cases can be difficult to investigate and messy to prosecute, more so when they involve children. Offenders may threaten further harm, and victims or their parents may not want to relive the trauma through lengthy investigations and prosecutions.
AP began investigating sexual violence among military children after readers of its 2017 investigation of sex assault in US public schools described an even more complex problem on bases.
It found the otherwise data-driven Pentagon does not analyse reports it receives of sexual violence among children and teens on base.
Assault reports
When the Defense Department said it could not pinpoint the number of assault reports, AP used US Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain investigative reports and data from the agencies that police the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines. AP also analyzed documents released by the Pentagon’s school system, which educates 71,000 students in seven US states and 11 other countries.
Records the military initially released omitted a third of the cases AP identified through interviews with prosecutors, military investigators, family members, whistleblowers and data that officials later provided. Other cases get buried.
Strand, now a private-sector consultant, estimated that in the Army alone colleagues passed on opening several hundred sex assault cases involving offenders under 14.
Strand said he learned of those alleged assaults in the 32 years that he was a military investigator and, later, as a trainer.
Responding to AP’s findings, the Defense Department said it “takes seriously any incident impacting the well-being of our service members and their families.” The department promised to take “appropriate actions” to help juveniles involved in sex assaults. It said it was “not aware of any juvenile sex offender treatment specialists” working in the military or its school system.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense described child-on-child sexual assault as “an emerging issue” that merited further review. AP found that military lawyers have warned about a juvenile justice black hole since the 1970s.
The military’s school system said student safety was its highest priority, that school officials were obligated to report all incidents and that “a single report of sexual assault is one too many.”
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Why not call it what it is “a petrol station”
Maybe a gas station?!
Bob’s place…..?
Stay classy Moneygall.
And theres those in Wexford still living off JFKs visit. Opening some new centre or something the other day. Fair play and good luck to both places.
Wexford has never had a JFK plaza. There’s a beautiful park in New Ross, the odd housing estate, but nothing as well fookin’ klassy as chipper and petrol station!
Does Supermacs still get its staff for free from Jobbridge?
Constriction????
How will Barack Obama contain his excitement???
By pumping a few gallons of gasoline one presumes=)
Read the entire article assuming it was some kind of civic/market square. Plaza is a bit misleading for a service station. Good jobs news I guess, but weird article.
Moneygall has a population of about 300 people. Jobs for 60 people (20% of the population) is fantastic for the village. Well done Pat and Una Mc Donagh.
Barack will be happy when he returns to see a nice big plaza station for his entourage of cars. Enda could do with more ideas for jobs like this around the country.
Did I read it right when it said “the only major purpose built motorway service facility on the new M7 route between Dublin and Limerick”, what about Mayfield?
aah where’s mayfield?
Is it really between dublin and limerick?
There is also a service station and services planned for Exit 27 at Birdhill. Planning pending. So it’s not altogether correct to say it’s the only one between Limerick and Dublin
I thought mayfield was in cork – I wouldn’t stop there if I were you !!!!
Yeah, I questioned that last part of the article there too, what makes it more surprising is the Junction 14 ‘Plaza’ also has a Supermacs, so this wont even be Supermac’s first service facility on the M7?
@patrick the one in Birdhill will never happen its too close to limerick to work
The title is misleading, it’s a petrol station. A plaza suggests that it may be a square or an open area built in the village itself. I’m sure he will be honoured :0/
Weird.
Barak O’ Plaza?
Tasty and tempting food at ….. O’Baraks ?
BaraCk, even!!
Hang on, what makes Obama so great that we are naming a plaza after him. I wish the America loving brigade would just look around and start to realise what the American dream really is. World domination most likely, and bomb the bejaysus out of anyone that steps in there way.
The Fall of the Republic explains it all , I won’t be visiting that petrol station !
haha, ‘we’ are not naming a petrol station after him, a businessman has decided to commemorate the visit of a popular presidents visit to his ancestral village. Makes sense seeing as everything else in the town is named after Obama, if you are serious in your point, maybe you should be questioning the Irish Government having a ‘JFK50′ celebration moreso than one businessman choosing a name for his business that you apparently dont like?!
Yes – he is popular in wall st – and with the Financial Industry [ Robbery Industry ] . He should be on trial for war crimes .
As for JFK – same goes – another war criminal – and aslo a great admirerer of Adolf hitler . No wonder we are in Finacial trouble . Our apparent heroes – the Yanks are the worlds biggest Terrorists – and more corrupt than FF – The biggest gangssetrs in History . Look up JFK admires Adolf Hitler on U tube .
What a pompus statement. Where do you get world domination from? Why not speak to the Chinese raping of Africa, or the European slaughter of the Amazon, or maybe the Russian stranglehold of fuel to Eastern Europe. Hate the U.S. because it’s cool to do so. Or maybe you could see this for what it is; A business venture latching on to a FREE UN -TRADEMARKED BRAND NAME. Its a way of making money and people like you with blind, badly researched points of view do nothing but fuel the buzz.
I never criticised the idea. I admire pat Mcdonagh as a business man. He seldom puts a foot wrong. I don’t hate America and had no idea it was cool to do so. But I cannot support any of their overseas mission over the past ten years in their so called war on terror. Even the title stinks of propaganda and how best to sell all this to gullible masses. Been to the states a few times and loved it. Now just where are those weapons of mass destruction?
You might want to remember that the US has been a haven for Irish immigrants. These immigrants played a major role in the building of the railroads, canals and much of the infrastructure of many a large US city. They have been fully integrated into American society achieving prominence in ensuing generations. We American Irish have never been denigrated, with the exception of the Anglophile, Hurst newspapers during the late 1800′s, Remember that many an Englishman refer to the Irish in the UK as “our Puerto Ricans.” What a disgusting slam both at us and the Puerto Ricans. Ok, so I may be dragging the point but you have bought into, as Hurst did, the English perception of the States. Yes, the US has played the role as the world’s policeman. But tell me why the Europeans hold the coat of the States behind their backs while decrying US over-involvement?
I wish they would not call it job creation when it is job relocation. Fuel, food etc sold here will be lost by some other station or restaurant somewhere else. It may be a great development but it will not create jobs.
Were it not for the name Barack Obama being used, I doubt ‘big service station in Offaly’ would be national news.
With the exception of him being the 1st African American president I truly don’t understand the adoration of that guy. His signing of the National Defense Aithorisation Act on New Years eve 2011 alone is enough to make me sick. That’s not even going into his governments treatment of corporate whistle blowers and continuing the ridiculous cruel wars America are running on a credit card. Oliver Stone described him as a wolf in a Sherpa cloak, a very accurate description from a once great filmmaker. And here we are naming a glorified petrol station after him.
Sheep’s clothing….auto spell and bad fingers!
Liked Sherpa’s better, deeper analogy.
Good man carlin. Well said
Sherpa cloak…sounds lovely and warm , where can I get one?
The Sherpa Shop in Moneygall have them… Cant miss it, Its beside the pub/shop/bookies/b&b/barbers building near Maggie Murphys house beside the village pump, where that cat sits all day. who belongs to that foreign guy from Nepal who owns the shop.
Dump
The constriction phase?
If it sells petrol at American prices…..that would be fantastic, you could call it bin laden unleaded for all I care.
moneygall is now more sickening than ballyporeen………
maybe they should twin…
This has been mooted before, but was shelved….
Merica. We’re kind of a big deal.
Utter rubbish
will have to stop and try the O’bama burger..
Another 15 minutes for yer man Henry. He might even get another spot on the late late
For 60 jobs who gives a shit what it’s called.
True, call it what u like as long as people are being employed. 75 or so to build it too
Credit due to owners of Supermacs,€6m investment in a small town, bringing much needed jobs and yet the trolls on the journal , you can read their comments! Some obviously don’t live in the real world. Fair play to Supermacs and Moneygall!
The could call it the black sheep off the family
Black irish
It works obviously. But really will Barack Obama go as low as them?
If there were a place with his name on it in Ireland that yoke would probably be meriting of it.
Junction 14 in mayfield is some spot I doubt moneygall will b like it best of luck do and shor birdhill exit has a site for sale for petrol station 2 with planing pending I tink can’t see the sign for it cos storm blew it down few mths ago
Pity it’s no a McDonald’s. So much nicer than slobber macs !
*not
Jeasus every country in the world should nowadays invest in their own citizens to go over to state and invest in their education and all that, you never know we might have some let me think… God knows Brzezowski’s landfill area. Maybe that president will visit it too. Other countries should really learn this. Milking fat cow’s, it’s all about that.
“a range of other options”, Barack Obama has said. What other options? So many innocent people killed, so much waste so that Obama, Bush etc. could keep their Jewish paymasters happy. Not that Mr. Obama has ever had much interest in the welfare of innocent people. They don’t come more innocent than a baby just about to be born and yet: “In 1997, Obama voted in the Illinois Senate against SB 230, a bill designed to prevent partial-birth abortions. In the US Senate, Obama has consistently voted to expand embryonic stem cell research. He has voted against requiring minors who get out-of-state abortions to notify their parents. The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) gives Obama a 100% score on his pro-choice voting record in the Senate for 2005, 2006, and 2007.”
This wonderful medical procedure goes as follows:
“The abortionist pulls the baby into breach position (feet first) and sequentially pulls out the baby’s legs and arms, leaving only the head inside the mother while the rest of the baby’s body is outside of the mother and even moving around. The abortionist then reaches in with a pair of scissors and cuts a hole in the back of the baby’s neck, and then sticks a suction tube into the hole. When the suction machine is turned on, the baby’s brain is sucked out, crushing the skull, at which point the now dead baby can be removed with ease.”
Of course Mr.Obama would justify this by saying the ‘welfare’ of the mother is all important. Please, please inform me how, in God’s name, the above procedure helps the mother in any way.
And then his beloved wife Michelle chips in with a letter, speaking of the partial-birth abortion ban, claims:
“The fact remains, with no provision to protect the health of the mother, this ban on a legitimate medical procedure is clearly unconstitutional and must be overturned.”
To think we welcomed these vermin into our country. I never thought a ‘first couple’ in the White House could make Bill and Hilary look good. I hope the chicken tastes good in Moneygall.
That guy standing behind Obama to the left looks very like the garda who was shot yesterday. Bit weird
This is so ridiculous it’s almost surreal. What is it that the man has done to call a plaza after him? He’s a suck up to the
bankers and private industry, like every other politician. How about naming it after someone who, without the incentives of being slapped on the cover of every magazine, has worked selflessly for their community. It’s not just this country that has it all wrong, this celebrity crap is everywhere.
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