The Air Force chooses this week to release its eval. (I won't comment on timing re the Convention or the Abu Ghraib - yet.)
Until I have time to read the actual report, I'll just reprint below the entire AP story (it's short). The statements about cultural and institutional change are very much in line with what I've been asking for, if not exact.
+++++++
Study faults Air Force sexual assault policies
By Angela K. Brown
The Associated Press
The sexual assault problem in the U.S. Air Force is more widespread than officials first believed, and combating it will require changes in the military branch's culture, according to a report released Monday.
After a four-month study of 85 installations in the United States and overseas, Air Force teams found that many rapes go unreported because victims fear they will be disciplined. The report also determined that response programs for the victims are inadequate.
In the study, "respondents repeatedly described sexual assault as a cultural issue," the report said.
The Air Force also lacks a formal sexual assault policy, and prevention training has been sporadic and has focused more on sexual harassment than rape, the assessment found.
"Addressing sexual assault in the U.S. Air Force requires deep, long-lasting, cultural and institutional change," Michael J. Dominguez, Air Force assistant secretary for manpower and reserves, wrote this month in a preface to the report.
The report recommends developing an Air Force-wide sexual assault prevention and response policy; assigning an office to oversee the policy and programs; integrating databases used to report and track rapes; and requiring predeployment sexual assault response training for officers.
"The Air Force must do a better job of defining and understanding the crime of sexual assault and the behavior that spawns it. Ultimately, the Air Force must work through its commanders to create an institutional environment that refuses to accept or facilitate such behavior," the report said.
The study began in February, a year after the rape scandal surfaced at the Air Force Academy in Colorado. Dozens of current and former female cadets said that they were ignored or punished after reporting assaults.
A few months later, Air Force officials decided to study rape allegations in the Pacific Air Forces command. After that commander presented his report in February, top Air Force officials decided to do a system-wide study.
Also in February, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, called for the Air Force to address reports that as many as two dozen military women were raped in fiscal year 2002-03 at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, about 100 miles north of Fort Worth.
=======================
And when the Army and Navy and Marines do their studies -- does anyone think less change is needed in those institutions?