The U.S. army has determined to place unbiased legal professionals in command of the way it investigates and prosecutes circumstances of sexual assault and different main crimes, sidelining commanders after years of stress from Congress, Lolita C. Baldor reports for the Associated Press. The change was compelled by members of Congress who believed that too usually commanders would fail to take victims’ complaints severely or would attempt to shield alleged perpetrators of their items. The Air Power, the Marine Corps and the Navy all noticed reported sexual assaults go up final yr, however a pointy 9 p.c drop in stories from the Military — the biggest army service — drove the general quantity down. In 2021, reported assaults spiked by 13 p.c. Below the legislation, new particular counsels could have the authority to make prosecution choices on a lot of main crimes, together with homicide, rape and several other different sexual assault-related offenses, kidnapping, home violence, making or possessing little one sexual abuse photographs, stalking and retaliation. Officers stated they count on every trial counsel to deal with as many as 50 investigations and roughly eight to 12 trials a yr.
Source / Picture: thecrimereport.org