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So that's 74,000 assaults against a population of 1,328,000[1]. So about 5.57% of the armed forces were assaulted sexually in one year.

But the United States as a whole had a reported ≈325k[2] sexual assaults in 2021. That's 0.09% of the population.

Are you really over 60 times more likely to be sexually assaulted in the military than in the general public? And are over a fifth of sexual assaults in America happening between military personnel? Somebody please tell me what I'm missing because I must be making a serious logical mistake.

[1] https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11994

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/642458/rape-and-sexual-a...



One common stat that is used is "1 in 5 women are SA'd in college". Assuming a 4-year college, that means 1-((1-.2)^.25) = 5.5% of women in college are SA'd each year. So the rates are somewhat similar to a rough approximation with some coarse assumptions about demographics.


The composition of the US military and the general public are different.

You would need to identify the rate among an equivalent population that isn't military.


Why is this surprising?


It looks like the Statista data comes from the National Crime Victimization Survey, which is available here. [1] Note that in 2022 the number rose to 531K, or 0.31% of women.

[1] https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/cv22.pdf


>Somebody please tell me what I'm missing because I must be making a serious logical mistake.

authority (and corresponding victim helplessness and defenselessness) breeds sexual assault and harassment. Military is by far among the most authoritarian institutions (only prison probably beats it by a thin margin).


Did you consider the age distribution difference of military and gen pop?


Did you consider the gender demographics? The assaults refer to assaults on women and I doubt that women/men ratio is 50/50ish as in the general public.


It's well established that sexual assault is under-reported in the US general population


Under-reported to police yes, but this data comes from NCVS which is generally regarded to be more accurate. You can learn more about their methodology here. [1]

[1] https://bjs.ojp.gov/data-collection/ncvs#0-0




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