McCaskill Meets Director of Military's Sexual Assault Prevention, Response Office

Press Release

U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill this week met with Major General Camille Nichols, the Director of the Pentagon's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, to discuss ongoing efforts to implement McCaskill's historic reforms to address military sexual assault, and remaining challenges--including how to reduce retaliation against survivors.

"We've made concrete progress in curbing sexual violence in the military, and I plan to continue aggressively tracking that progress and working for more," said McCaskill, a former sex crimes prosecutor and a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "I was glad to have an opportunity to discuss these goals with General Nichols, as well as continued challenges with increasing survivors' trust that when they do report sex crimes, they will be taken seriously and protected from retaliation."

Major General Nichols most recently served as the Director of Business Operations in the U.S. Army Office of Business Transformation. Previously, she was the Deputy Commanding General of the Army's Installation Management Command and served over twenty years in Department of Defense acquisition.

A recent report indicated victims of sexual assault continue to experience increased confidence in the military justice system as McCaskill's series of reforms continue to take hold. The report details sexual assault programs, initiatives and policy enhancements from 2014, information about sexual assault reports made by and against servicemembers, and outcomes of allegations made in unrestricted reports.

The report is an expansion of an earlier Pentagon report which showed demonstrable progress in reducing the prevalence of unwanted sexual contact in the military and increasing reporting of such crimes by survivors. The 2013 report showed a 50 percent increase in reports received from the previous year and the 2014 report showed an additional 11 percent jump in reporting--this after reporting increased by less than 6 percent from 2011-2012.

Over the past several years, McCaskill has won a series of sweeping reforms to the military justice system that hold both perpetrators and military commanders more accountable and better protect and empower survivors. These more than 30 reforms include stripping commanders of the ability to overturn convictions, giving every victim who reports a sexual assault an independent lawyer, allowing survivors to challenge their discharge or separation from service making retaliation against a victim who reports a sexual assault a crime, eliminating the statute of limitations for these cases and eliminating the "good soldier" defense, among others.

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