Female military justice

Report reckons female members of the armed force s are treated differently by the authorities when making a complaint or an accusation of wrong doing. It questions the "glacial" pace of change amongst the top brass. It's the 21st century and our serving ladies deserve the same treatment and equality of justice as serving blokes.

Female military staff denied justice by inadequate system - MPs

Veterans describe a "boys' club" where sex assaults were hushed up and complaining could be career-ending.

www.bbc.co.uk

"MPs said they were "truly shocked" by accounts of sexual assault and rape.....The Ministry of Defence said changes had been made to help women.....In a landmark report, MPs on the defence select committee say cases of serious sexual assault and rape should be taken out of the military justice system and tried in civilian courts instead.
Convictions for rape in the military are four to six times lower than in civilian courts."

 

[Rugby-Jock-Lad]

Too much emphasis on maintaining reputation as opposed to dealing with the issue unfortunately. The Service Complaint system is not fit for purpose!! So imagine something more major like sexual assault?!! As soon as accusations like this are made, the regular Police should be called in. We only have to look at places like Deep Cut to know what happens when they are not called in ASAP as independent investigators.

 

[busby1971]

In my time the system worked for the system, it didn’t discriminate everyone was treated badly if you didn’t rigidly cow tow to the right line.

I would like to think that the way in which several Senior Officers have been brought to justice that the system has since become more equitable.

 

[Tin basher]

In my time the system worked for the system.

Agreed and it seemed to be, back then, that how far up the system you lived the harder the system would work for you.

On a personal note never in 23 years did see or experience myself any bullying, harassment or unwelcome behaviour from any member of the RAF I ever worked or socialised with. Most folks are decent honest humans it's just a few odd balls that spoil it.

 

[Tin basher]

The yanks are in the process of changing how they deal with cases and putting it into law. Taking the commanders out of the loop.

Gillibrand speaks out on military sexual assault – again. But this time it might be different

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has never been closer to her decade-long goal of changing the way the military\u00a0prosecutes rape and other sexual crimes.

eu.usatoday.com

 

[Rugby-Jock-Lad]

The yanks are in the process of changing how they deal with cases and putting it into law. Taking the commanders out of the loop.

Gillibrand speaks out on military sexual assault – again. But this time it might be different

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has never been closer to her decade-long goal of changing the way the military\u00a0prosecutes rape and other sexual crimes.

eu.usatoday.com

"But it will undermine the CoC and the CO in charge!!" no doubt will be the cry especially from the MOD here if it is (hopefully) introduced here too. But they would not get THAT WOULD THE POINT!!! There has to be impartial oversight that doesn't get the chance to make an "investigative mistake" while condoning a closed rank protection system. Deepcut....just saying!!!

 

[ERT]

Agreed and it seemed to be, back then, that how far up the system you lived the harder the system would work for you.

On a personal note never in 23 years did see or experience myself any bullying, harassment or unwelcome behaviour from any member of the RAF I ever worked or socialised with. Most folks are decent honest humans it's just a few odd balls that spoil it.

As a introvert, life was difficult as a LAC/SAC. If you were not a big socialiser, drinker ~ you didn't fit in. You became the focus of the section idiots (& their missing teeth) for jolly japes, both inside & outside of work. Life wasn't very pleasurable and became a bit of a chore just to head off to work.

As a LAC/SAC, my performance suffered, looking back it could be marked off as "Bullying", as it was unwanted/unwelcome.

Good News though, the RAF has changed, or from my viewpoint ~ it has.

 

[Oldstacker]

As a introvert, life was difficult as a LAC/SAC. If you were not a big socialiser, drinker ~ you didn't fit in. You became the focus of the section idiots (& their missing teeth) for jolly japes, both inside & outside of work. Life wasn't very pleasurable and became a bit of a chore just to head off to work.

As a LAC/SAC, my performance suffered, looking back it could be marked off as "Bullying", as it was unwanted/unwelcome.

Good News though, the RAF has changed, or from my viewpoint ~ it has.

I can sort of relate to this, although in my case, it was well over 40 years ago so may not be relevant, & I learned to adapt. Did I witness any real bullying in the 70's? I don't think so although I was questioned by P&SS (as a potential witness) about someone who was accused if threatening behaviour. Pretty much everything I experienced or witnessed was written off by all those concerned & their immediate supervisors as horseplay. Immature, rude & lewd maybe, but ultimately part of the roughty toughty life that went with being in the armed forces and i don't recall that anyone was every a particular target, it all went all ways. Could some of it, as it related to females, have been described as indecent or sexual? That's a tougher one as it was part of the general experience of horseplay that went on between all us younger airmen & airwomen & I never saw anyone deliberately harassing or groping etc any of the girls for sexual gratification that I am aware of.

So, for me the question is - has the behaviour of individuals actually declined or has some of the behaviour been redefined and given connotations that make it sound worse than actually is?

If the former, than I wonder how the years of much better sex education, PSE schooling and equalities training/experiences than I had as a young man have not suppressed it; or, if the latter, then are we devaluing the terms related to genuinely sexual or indecent behaviours by including in them acts of, ultimately stupid & offensive, horseplay that need a different approach to shutting them down without criminalisation of the offenders?

I look around when i go down town & other places and I am sure I see far more mixed sex groups of teenagers than was the case in my youth (when there far more single sex schools than today and organisations such as Scouts etc were also strictly single sex) so I would have thought that such socialisation at schools and outside should have made individuals more sensible & comfortable with each other than reports suggest.

I am bemused....

 

[ERT]

I can sort of relate to this, although in my case, it was well over 40 years ago so may not be relevant, & I learned to adapt. Did I witness any real bullying in the 70's? I don't think so although I was questioned by P&SS (as a potential witness) about someone who was accused if threatening behaviour. Pretty much everything I experienced or witnessed was written off by all those concerned & their immediate supervisors as horseplay. Immature, rude & lewd maybe, but ultimately part of the roughty toughty life that went with being in the armed forces and i don't recall that anyone was every a particular target, it all went all ways. Could some of it, as it related to females, have been described as indecent or sexual? That's a tougher one as it was part of the general experience of horseplay that went on between all us younger airmen & airwomen & I never saw anyone deliberately harassing or groping etc any of the girls for sexual gratification that I am aware of.

So, for me the question is - has the behaviour of individuals actually declined or has some of the behaviour been redefined and given connotations that make it sound worse than actually is?

If the former, than I wonder how the years of much better sex education, PSE schooling and equalities training/experiences than I had as a young man have not suppressed it; or, if the latter, then are we devaluing the terms related to genuinely sexual or indecent behaviours by including in them acts of, ultimately stupid & offensive, horseplay that need a different approach to shutting them down without criminalisation of the offenders?

I look around when i go down town & other places and I am sure I see far more mixed sex groups of teenagers than was the case in my youth (when there far more single sex schools than today and organisations such as Scouts etc were also strictly single sex) so I would have thought that such socialisation at schools and outside should have made individuals more sensible & comfortable with each other than reports suggest.

I am bemused....

Life is different now, less tolerant as we shrunk in size, focus shifted to output (lean) and performance (with less) over having masses and masses of people. In the past, I would spend days & days sat in the crew room, but now its busy-busy-busy as we shrunk from 100k down to 33k in personnel size.

I also believe that you cant judge the past, on todays view in life. The past is the past, and what was delivered back then was in the spirit of "how it was". However, we can look back and say "ooh, that wasn't so great, lets not do that now and into the future".

You are correct, teenagers do hang around in mixed sex, its kind of getting to the point where in the not so far future (30-40 years), gender wont matter. Its about person-person contact. Nearly strayed into the Gender topics, so shall cut the response short...

In short, if you have a problem with Bullying, Harassment, Anything you are unhappy with, step up and say so... We've all heard of the campaign --> "Face it, Fix it..." https://www.thegarnettfoundation.com/raf/

 

[SAXAVORDIAN]

I doubt you could stop bullying in the forces. How far would you describe a jape to someone who doesn't get it. Unless you prefer Ticktock life constantly not able to blow off steam. I ve seen really bad bullying during my time in the eighties, but when they step over the mark they're caught. I would say different services have their own way of discipline then. And with today amenities such as mobile phones smart phones being abundant is probably adding to the rancour than we had during eighties. Sadly with the stories in the press of Soldiers being abused or causing abuse only reflex what outside the service too.

 

[Downsizer]

As a introvert, life was difficult as a LAC/SAC. If you were not a big socialiser, drinker ~ you didn't fit in. You became the focus of the section idiots (& their missing teeth) for jolly japes, both inside & outside of work. Life wasn't very pleasurable and became a bit of a chore just to head off to work.

As a LAC/SAC, my performance suffered, looking back it could be marked off as "Bullying", as it was unwanted/unwelcome.

Good News though, the RAF has changed, or from my viewpoint ~ it has.

I'd echo this....as a youngster who just turned 18 on arrival at my first unit I'd say I was treated the same. I didn't think I was being bullied at the time, but the reality I probably was. Until the Sqn "daddies" moved onto the next batch of LACs.

 

[Spearmint]

I'd echo this....as a youngster who just turned 18 on arrival at my first unit I'd say I was treated the same. I didn't think I was being bullied at the time, but the reality I probably was. Until the Sqn "daddies" moved onto the next batch of LACs.

Or you became the 'Daddy Liney' and carried the 'tradition' on through.....

 

[Oldstacker]

I wonder if ERT, Downsizer & Spearmint have touched on part of the problem. Back in the 70's at a typical operational unit (Binbrook in my case) there was a new LAC joining the squadron almost every week - you were not the most junior member of the squadron for very long. Consequently, you were generally not the particular target of the horseplay for very long either and moved from being the baby to someone more experienced/senior quite quickly. Now that the service is smaller, i guess that the throughput of training has changed and individuals may be the squadron babies for much longer.

I wonder also whether the modern education system, which has changed immensely over the last 40 years, now doesn't 'toughen' people up and recruits are less well prepared for service life?

 

[Downsizer]

I'm not sure toughening up in the education system is the issue. I think recruits broadly are prepared for service life.

I'm no longer convinced that stripping people naked, tieing them to towing arms and dragging them round pans is actualy building team cohesion and probably never did. If I look back honestly now, without rose tinted specs, I'd deffo say I was uncomfortable with things that were done to me, and not every "victim" of "hi-jinks" that I took part in probably didn't like it either.