WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has launched a new program that aims to find serial sex offenders in the military by compiling information into a database submitted by sexual-assault survivors.
The program, called Catch a Serial Offender, or Catch, allows survivors of sexual assault who are submitting a restricted report to provide information confidentially about the sexual assault incident as well as the accused offender to military investigators so they can try to identify serial offenders, according to the Pentagon announcement released Monday.
The program was first announced in May by former Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan in a memo about the Defense Department’s actions to address and prevent sexual assault in the military. It came after the release of the Fiscal Year 2018 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, which found sexual assaults against female troops have increased by 44% since 2016.
Related links:
Pentagon needs help to ‘CATCH’ serial sex offenders [connectingvets.radio.com – 8/5/19]
Look at some illegal images on the computer that somebody posts on the internet and in short you will have a dozen agents fully armed ripping your door down and taking you away. Post a 20 page manifesto of your diabolical plan to shoot innocent people, that along with selfies on FB of you holding guns and you will mysteriously go unnoticed by the feds. Too bad they government can’t put the same resources to help curtail the real crisis in our face as it does in the witch hunt for those elusive predators that are everywhere.
Wanna bet that it will take only one accusation to get someone labeled a Serial Sex Offender?
And I’m sure there is a procedure to weed out false claims as well. [/sarc]
“A restricted report is for servicemembers, as well as their adult dependents, who want to report a sexual assault without having to initiate a law enforcement investigation or notify their command. … A survivor can change their restricted report to unrestricted to start an investigation.”
During the Middle Ages, this was accomplished with a hole in the side of the church, for people to slip notes.
“The Catch system is operated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service…”
Coming to a TV episode soon.
So when does the “accused” get some say in all of this.
Just to play devil’s advocate for a moment, there seems to be a lot of sexual encounters in the news lately that start out consensual and then for whatever reasons, guilt, regret, etc., end up with one party accusing the other of sexual assault. Only those two parties actually know what took place.
In this case the Pentagon seems already poised to label those reporting assaults as “the victims” and those accused as “serial offenders” before anyone has had their day in court.
What a justice system we have!
I am glad I retired when I did. Now if a junior service member does not like what their higher ranking person tells them to do they now can file these reports and ruin that person career.
Here’s an idea, how about not letting people into the military who show signs of being more likely than others to engage in these behaviors? By now there’s got to be a general roadmap for noticing early risk factors that should be able to be screened for and helped not become anything truly worrisome prior to something bad happening. Rather than approve at risk individuals for boot camp give them recommendations for mental health services in their area. It might feel nice in the short term catching people who’ve done something, but that doesn’t solve the root problem of reducing future instances in the first place.
Let’s not forget the fact that if the US military doesn’t have numbers to present to Congress to prove they are tough on prosecuting sexual assault they will get them one way or another. There is case after case in the military of them bringing cases to trial without any evidence of assault at all (and with a nearly 90% prosecution rate) or scaring the soldier/ sailor/ airman into taking a plea deal. Often the motivation does include allowing the “victim” to PCS anywhere they want, and often the “victim” is cheating on their husband or wife and fears getting caught.
I’m not trying to say that there are no sexual assaults or rapes in the military, of course there are and of course they are terrible, but I know of many women who have falsely accused men to get what they want because, let’s face it, no Commander would ever dare question a “victim” and the system is completely stacked against the supposed “assaulter”.
The jurors are all competing with the accused for rank and the Commander is hell bent on prosecution so he can write on his OPR that he brought “justice” to the court. So what are they going to do?
Additionally, the military investigators are often known for contaminating the “crime scene”, planting evidence and making criminals when they don’t have enough of them.
Sting Operation tactics that civilian police stopped using years ago are alive and well in the military. They use pictures of women well into their twenties for their stings and, in at least one occasion, sent a 23 year old “decoy” to entice an Air Force Airman at the base gym so he believed he was talking to a woman and not a girl. Then they prosecuted him for “Sex Abuse of a Child” and kicked him out of the Air Force. He will, of course, have to register as a sex offender and the Air Force OSI agent gets tons of medals and accolades for ridding the military of a sex abuser. They have successfully used these methods to prosecute many, many service members, including those deployed overseas and on Ambien (which the Air Force gives them to sleep while they are receiving IDF) and when they are horny and online looking for horny women to talk to. They are being directly targeted. And this is by their own.
Well, seeing that my conviction was under the UCMJ, I’ll put in my two cents. Any of these reports are enough to press pause on a service member’s career. As soon as a formal investigation is opened, anything and everything (promotions, awards, etc.) are placed on hold. They also will likely get your security clearance suspended as well, but defense counsel fixed that issue. They will also talk to just about everyone in your work area as part of their investigation, and everything will get turned around on you. They will even coax many of your closest friends into cooperating in a pre-text phone call. Also, they do not need a warrant to commence active surveillance on you (all they needs is base commander, not a judge, to sign off) even off base.
Not that any of that helped them in my case. All the evidence they needed against me was going to be born in 5 months. He is now 14 and a well adjusted young man who treasures his time with his father.
But, any report, made by anyone, even at a different base, is enough to wreak a career. Due to competition in certain career fields, you can bet that this will be misused. The military culture is rife with alpha types that likely will rub most people the wrong way, even in conversation. Most are elitist and full of themselves and their service to branch and country. I know cause that was me, until I was shown otherwise. Conflict is rich in a highly competitive environment where points and reputation matter, and that opens the window for abuse of these situations.
Also, this is a sad situation for all the Jody’s out there. All it will take is one unfaithful spouse to turn on your when her service member finds out what she’s been up to, and with who, while he has been deployed. She’d throw ya under the bus in a heart-beat.
@TS
The Air Force gives it’s people the drug Ambien while deployed to overseas war zones. It helps with the constant shift changes and the ability to sleep during all times of the day as the schedule dictates. It’s handed out by the medical group- usually in small baggies and they do try to limit the amount one is given at a time. One Airman deployed to such a location was on Ambien and started chatting online with someone he thought was the twenty-something woman in the photographs she was sending him over an app for adults. Long story short, it was an Air Force OSI agent who was talking to him. He (the agent was a he) was sending him non age-regressed pictures of another OSI agent female. He did at one point in the chat say he was underage, but the pictures and the chat implied otherwise (The agent in the picture also had a large, visible arm tattoo and looked in her twenties, not young teens). The Airman did mention in the chat he was on medication and woozy. The AGENT turned the chat in a sexual direction and asked in the chat for the Airman to send an obscene photograph of himself. The Airman did, and was charged with Sexual Abuse of a Child because of “lewd Pictures” and “lewd language” to a “child”.
It was brought up in court that the Agent had acted outside of his scope in many aspects. He had never received any ICAC (Internet Crimes Against Children) training at all, the actual operation in which OSI agents were trying to catch internet sexual predators was in fact over, he was supposed to only talk to Airman within a radius of his stateside base, not those overseas in a war zone. He was supposed to age regress the picture and take off (or cover) any tattoos that might confuse Airman who were online wishing to talk to adults. The chat mentioned the Airman was on a drug. The chat also showed that the agent had violated the OSI rules by asking the airman to send inappropriate pictures instead of the other way around or him leading the inappropriateness. The agent broke pretty much every law on the OSI side but the military is known for taking cases to trial when they shouldn’t because it’s a closed system and they can win. Judges and the prosecution will receive medal after medal, even if they are considered “not successful” in fully prosecuting a service member (all anyone has to do is see the numerous articles written about Eddie Gallagher’s prosecutors to see evidence of this).
It took 3 years to take this case to trial. The prosecution blundered all the way there, but managed to secure a military judge that wouldn’t even let the defense lawyers speak. The system is designed not to find out the truth or even take criminals out of the service or protect people. The system exists simply so the military can take numbers to congress and that they can put on their OPR that they won in some way by ruining peoples lives.
As @JDoeUtah said they will do everything in their power to try and ruin your life and career in the meantime. Friends/coworkers/exes/girlfriends/bosses/commanders/neighbors/relatives/anyone will be told terrible things about the accused and they will comb through everyone they know to see if there is anyone willing to testify against them or, even better, accuse them of something else. Security clearances are sometimes taken away right at the accusation. Anyone with even a remote amount of power in the squadron who has any beef with the accused will immediately barge their way into his/her case and start trying to isolate him/her from everyone else. There isn’t anything that OSI won’t tell them either and pretty soon everyone is talking about it and deciding the accused guilt even before their day in court. So do you really ever think anyone in the military ever gets a fair trial? Those jurors are not strangers from all walks of life who don’t know anything about you. They are from your base and they are all competing with you for rank and money. It behooves them to get rid of peers.
An accusation is all it takes. If it goes to court people in the squadron are urged to show up and watch like a public execution. In the case of the Airman above he had several friends and family who were all willing to stand up for him and felt like he was innocent. The prosecution JAGs called all of those people and, in at least one case, threatened their military career as well. They will stop at nothing to ruin anyone.
This is why I don’t trust the United States military anymore. At one time I was proud to serve but after seeing too much of this I am just trying to retire and get out of there. I would never let any child of mine join the modern military as it stands right now.
@TS
I apologize for my late reply. I read the article and it is very interesting! At least it is being brought out to the public now. After Eddie Gallagher’s trial too I think the curtain was slightly lifted on some of the truly unjust things the military “justice” system (oxymoron!) does.
Chief Gallagher’s brother commented how they were following Eddie around and spying on him, even trying to take a petty argument he had with his wife at a movie theater and claim it was spousal abuse. It is so ridiculously tilted in the favor of the prosecution and the investigators so they can get medals and so on. I guess that dude that was adding the tracking to the emails got reassigned… to a better and higher placed authority than he was before! So yeah, there is definitely different spanks when an airman high on Ambien can be bamboozled and have the rest of his life ruined by an OSI agent who just likes to mess with people, and yet this dude who absolutely knew he was convoluting justice gets basically a promotion in title. It’s so obviously messed up it hurts my head.
It makes me so sad because I used to be so patriotic but I just don’t have any faith in the military anymore.