120 Pages Posted: 3 Dec 2015

Date Written: April 22, 2015

Abstract

This article examines the sexual assault prevention and response (SAPR) policy in the military over the last few years. Although focused primarily on the military policy, most of the concerns addressed in this article are equally applicable to how colleges and universities are dealing with SAPR. The article argues that civilian and military leadership have neglected to protect the wrongly accused. There are three sections to this article. The first section explains why we should be concerned about the wrongly accused, using examples of wrongful convictions, false accusations, the reasons they occur, and some research about the frequency of the problem. The next section discusses why we have not done so, demonstrates that false accusations are not rare, and exposes the significant flaws with the research that is driving our unbalanced policy. The last section identifies specific flaws with policy, the justice process, and with SAPR training and offers recommendations for how we can improve prevention and response while simultaneously protecting both victims and the wrongly accused.