WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP PREVENT Sexual Assault IN MY UNIT?

Read and implement the Joint Chiefs of Staff Strategic Direction to the Joint Force on Sexual Assault Prevention & Response. Command implementation of the SHARP Program aligns with this strategic direction as follows:

Mission: Commanders are to reduce—with a goal to eliminate—incidents of sexual assault through improved prevention, accountability, and victim advocacy/services at all levels in order to preserve a culture of trust and respect consistent with the Profession of Arms, the Warrior Ethos, and our core values and to maintain the health, discipline, and readiness of our Army.

End State: Commanders, leaders, and Soldiers have fully operationalized the SHARP Program across the Army—our accession commands and Service academies, across our training bases and throughout our operational commands worldwide. We have reinforced our cultural imperatives of mutual respect and trust, professional values, and team commitment that underscore a military culture and environment where sexual assault is not tolerated.

Implementing Instructions: The Army will meet the Chairman and Joint Chiefs’ intent to imbue a professional culture and command climate/ environment to reduce sexual assaults by operationalizing and synchronizing the SHARP Program across the Army, at all levels of command, both at home station and while deployed.

Commanders will operationalize sexual assault prevention and response along five Lines of Effort (LOEs) supported by five overarching tenets. The implementing LOEs of Prevention, Investigation, Accountability, Advocacy, and Assessment are reinforced by the overarching tenets of Leadership, Communication, Culture/Environment, Integration, and Resourcing.

Commanders have a responsibility to establish a command climate in which safety is promoted, where Soldiers and Army civilian employees are educated on sexual assault prevention techniques, and Soldiers and Army civilians feel free to report incidents.

Sexual assault is a unit readiness and safety risk
It corrodes unit cohesion and violates the bonds of trust among Soldiers; trust between Soldiers and leaders; trust between Soldiers, their Families, and the Army; and the trust between the Army and the American people. Sexual assault is a crime that is incompatible with Army Values, the Profession of Arms, and the Warrior Ethos. Sexual assault directly and negatively impacts readiness across the force. Take the following actions to help reduce the risk of sexual assault in your unit:

• Educate and train your unit on sexual assault prevention
  Educate Soldiers and Army civilian employees about the definition of sexual assault, facts over myths, the Army policy regarding sexual assault, and prevention measures they can take to reduce risk of sexual assault.
  
  Conduct unit refresher training on sexual assault prevention in your unit. Soldiers will receive sexual harassment and sexual assault prevention training in Initial Entry Training. Consider the risk of sexual assault and conduct unit safety briefs during high-risk periods such as holidays and deployments.Talk with Soldiers about planning ahead for potential risk, what to do if a sexual assault occurs, and their reporting options. Reinforce the notion that victims are to be protected. Alert unit leaders to suicide risks and behavior changes sometimes associated with sexual assault.
• Monitor the command climate to ensure that it is supportive of victims
  Ensure that Soldiers and Army civilian employees feel comfortable in reporting sexual assault to the chain of command. Make sure they know that when victims speak with a SARC/SHARP Specialist or VA/SHARP Specialist about their sexual assault, the communication is privileged, as is communication with certain medical personnel. You can do this by communicating your intention to protect and treat victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault and by making it clear that you will follow Army policy in fully investigating all incidents of sexual misconduct.
  
  Communicate to Soldiers and Army civilian employees that you and your chain of command will provide caring assistance to victims of sexual assault. Make sure Soldiers and Army civilian employees know that the chain of command will take appropriate disciplinary action.
  
  Continually assess the command climate regarding the risk of sexual assault in your unit.
  
  Demonstrate, through your words and actions, that sexual assault is unacceptable and is incompatible with the Profession of Arms, Army Values and the Warrior Ethos.
  
  Recognize that males, as well as females, are sexually assaulted; so avoid inclinations to viewing this or speaking about it as a gender issue. Male victims are the least likely to come forward, so you want to create an environment that makes it safe for them to come forward for help.
  
  Demonstrate your willingness to address incidents of sexual assault and to reject the precursors of sexual assault, such as sexual innuendos, sexual harassment, stalking, demeaning behaviors, and egregious indecent assaults by also addressing other forms of harassment or discrimination. Ensure all soldiers feel free to contact the Equal Opportunity Branch if they believe they have been discriminated against or treated unfairly due to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin.
  
  Ensure all civilian employees feel free to contact the Equal Employment Opportunity Office if they feel they have been discriminated against because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, or if they have experienced reprisal in an employment matter.

Reducing the risk of acquaintance or date rape in your unit
"Acquaintance rape," which includes date rape, refers to those rapes that occur between two or more people that know one another. "Date rape" refers to situations in which the one person has consented to go on a date with another person and that person then rapes him or her.

According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), about two-thirds of sexual assault victims in the United States knew their assailants. To help prevent acquaintance or date rape:

• Educate Soldiers and Army civilian employees about the importance of maintaining alertness by avoiding alcohol and drug use.
• Encourage assertiveness and communication in dating and other intimate situations.
• Educate Soldiers and Army civilian employees on the dangers of "date rape drugs."

Deployed unit risk reduction considerations
Be especially prepared and alert in deployed environments. Deployed environments can present special risks for Army personnel:

• In forward deployed areas, facilities that Soldiers frequent can be spread out a considerable distance from working locations or housing. This may require traveling on foot in darkened spaces to access them. In the case of showers or latrines, travel occurs at times when a Soldier may be actually unarmed. Soldiers accessing dining or USO facilities at odd hours, due to shift work, may be isolated and in danger from local nationals, contractors, or other Soldiers who may attack them because no one else is around to intervene. Similarly, Soldiers who work long hours may find themselves at the gym at post-midnight and pre-dawn hours in order to get in their workout for the day, leaving them vulnerable to a potential perpetrator who is lying in wait. Entry Control Points can be the most dangerous of all, given these persons can be completely alone at times or, at the very, least distant from immediate assistance. In forward deployed areas, Soldiers usually work long hours seven days a week. Unlike stateside areas, where sexual assaults typically occur on weekends, current data reveals that sexual assaults in these environments do not occur on particular days. Rather, these assaults occur on any given day of the week, presumably due to the work schedules at those locations.
• Soldiers in these areas are housed in a wide variety of ways. This can be as austere as a sleeping bag on the ground or hunkering down inside a vehicle. For most, it will likely mean living in tents, B-huts, relocatable buildings (RLBs), or CHUs. If Soldiers are serving in an environment in which they are living among the local population, they can be housed in local national housing facilities, and in the rarer of circumstances, Soldiers reside in hard-stand facilities built by contractors or combat engineers. The level of physical security available to a Soldier in these different types of lodging varies, with less security being available the more austere the housing options become. Physical security recommendations must take into account the types of housing available, as simply telling someone who sleeps on the ground or lives in a tent to lock their doors makes no sense. Credible advice is needed to address their particular situations.
• At some locations, it is simply too risky to have any lights on—even a flashlight. This means that, traveling about during hours of darkness may even involve movement in complete darkness. Such sites leave Soldiers extremely vulnerable to sexual harassment and sexual assault. Telling units at these locations that what they need to do is turn on their lights will be met with incredulity, as turning on the lights means likely enemy fire. Instead, commanders should consider appropriate options (like roving patrols, standing guards, etc.), if feasible, as part of any physical security recommendations for these situations.
• Sometimes the host-nation’s capacity for electricity may be limited, the area where Soldiers are located may be too remote, or generators fail, reducing the ability to have areas illuminated. Security risks due to lighting limitations can be especially challenging in the early days of an operation or when the operation expands into other, more remote parts of a country. When this occurs, Soldiers are more vulnerable than they are at locations that have electricity and lights around the clock. In most cases in these environments, power failures occur on periodically; therefore, commanders will need to bear in mind the sexual assault risk implications for such situations.
• When commanders prioritize their efforts to address physical security in forward deployed areas, they necessarily need to look at housing, toilet, and shower facilities as their first concerns. In a tent, B-hut, CHU, or hard-stand housing unit, Soldiers are typically asleep and often unarmed. Many of these facilities offer no physical security, other than a means of securing one’s weapon. Similarly, in shower facilities, Soldiers are frequently unarmed, often at the direction of the forward operating base/ compound/ base mayor or the commander. If these Soldiers must use the latrine or shower facility under these circumstances when no one else is around, they are vulnerable to attack and less able to fend off the attacker(s). Commanders and mayors have good reasons for imposing certain rules and guidelines; however, they need to remain aware of the sexual assault risk implications.
• Make sure your unit leaders and Soldiers know how to contact your SARC/SHARP Specialist or VA/SHARP Specialist in case they or someone they know is sexually assaulted. Remind them, it is DOD policy that sexual assaults are treated as medical emergencies, not minor or routine.