WASHINGTON, March 17 (UPI) -- The Pentagon took 2,908 reports of sexual assault involving service personnel for fiscal year 2008, an 8 percent jump over 2007, a department official said.
"The increase in reports means the department's policy of encouraging victims to come forward is making a difference," Kaye Whitley, director of the Defense Department's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, said Tuesday during a news conference.
"(This) does not mean sexual assault has gone up; this means that reports have gone up, which we see as a very positive, because we're getting the victims in to get care," Whitley said.
Victims have two options of reporting sexual assaults, the director said, restricted and unrestricted. The military always had the unrestricted option, but added restricted reporting, which allows a service member to get care confidentially, without an investigation or a commanding officer being notified, she said.
Whitley attributed the increase in reports to victims the having two options.
"It is my hope today that the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who may see or read the reports," she said, "will be encouraged to come forward to report the sexual assault and to receive care. Sexual assault harms our people and erodes our mission readiness."
