A huge percentage of these cases would be prevented if the leadership at Company-level and up actually took SHARP cases seriously and didn't retaliate against [1] or belittle soldiers who report assault/harassment. Or the fact that, until recently, it was at the commander's discretion whether to prosecute an assault/harassment as a crime [2].

>there's been a lack of realism from leadership about the actual realities..

I can assure you most Platoon leaders, Company commanders, etc. are very aware of the realities in enlisted living quarters; they are simply apathetic about them. A SHARP complaint becomes another pile of paperwork on their desk they don't want to deal with (see [2]).

I think the tendency to blame the 18-22 year olds with "dysfunctional backgrounds" who "barely made it through high school" places the blame on the lower enlisted while ignoring the military leadership's responsibility for decades of documented failure in addressing this issue.

Consider the following:

> Most Service members identified the alleged offenders as men and often of the same rank as the victim or some other higher ranking military member in their unit. However, an estimated 44 percent of women and an estimated 35 percent of men identified at least one alleged offender as someone in their chain of command [3].

Also consider reasons for not reporting:

>Despite these differences, the top three reasons provided for not reporting were consistent between men and women: (1) did not think anything would be done; (2) thought it was not serious enough to report; and (3) worried about potential negative consequences from military coworkers or peers [3].

In my opinion, the problem is at the top of the hierarchy, not the bottom.

(Sorry to throw so much in this comment, but I grow really tired of people thinking this problem is some case of lower enlisted being dumb hooligans who can't control their urges while ignoring the consistent and systemic failures of senior officers and NCO within the DoD to address the problem at all.)

[1] https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-reserve-416th-sexual-as... [2] https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/12/28/sexu... [3] https://www.sapr.mil/sites/default/files/public/docs/reports...