Posted on 06/27/2011 8:16:52 PM PDT by JohnBrownUSA
Preventing Sexual Assaults and Safety Incidents at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Facilities:
Opening Statement By Hon. Ann Marie Buerkle, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Health, and a Representative in Congress from the State of New York:
"Last week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a deeply troubling report entitled "VA Health Care: Actions Needed to Prevent Sexual Assaults and Other Safety Incidents." GAO found that between January 2007 and July 2010, nearly 300 sexual assault incidents, including 67 alleged rapes, were reported to VA police. Many of these alleged crimes were not reported to VA leadership officials or the VA Office of the Inspector General, in direct violation of VA policy and federal regulations. "
(Excerpt) Read more at veterans.house.gov ...
At one VA hospital I know of, the protocol would seem to be of assigning a non-law enforcement VA employee to act as an investigator for a sexual assault allegation. This VA employee will typically not know anything about collecting evidence, interviewing suspects, or writing reports as they investigate a sexual assault allegation. (No bias here...whatever)
After the inexperienced VA administrative investigator screws up the sexual assault investigation, the VA management then gets to ignore that any sexual assault took place in their facility, and all because the VA administrative investigator is not trained to recognize what a sexual assault is. (How convenient...huh?)
This does reflect a larger problem right now at the VA, and this problem was acknowledged in the congressional testimony last week that there is currently, no VHA-wide definition of sexual assault that exists.
So if a VA administrative investigator does not know what a sexual assault crime is, how can the VA discover evidence that would substantiate a sexual assault allegation???
Per the VA regulations, once evidence is discovered of sexual assault, the sexual assault is supposed to be immediately forwarded to the police to prevent tainting of the criminal investigative process.
BUT if the VA administrative investigator doesn't know what they are doing with a criminal allegation, the VA invariably ends up hurting any chance of a successful police investigation because the sexual assault complaint will not be forwarded to police for an investigation to begin with.
The tragic result is that Justice is denied as the perpetrators are allowed to go free by the VA, and the sexual assault victims' lives are left shattered.
If we can help spread the word about what the VA is doing to veterans around America, we can make sure that the politicians we elect do not give lip service of saying that they * promise * to help veterans after they are sexually assaulted at a VA facility.
Maybe one day veterans can once again trust the VA when it says, "Veterans come first!"
67 alleged rapes, in THREE and a half years, across the ENTIRE USA ?
that would make it about the safest place for women in the Nation.
(and MUCH MUCH safer than our schools, where nationwide there are probably more than that every single DAY.)
...and that is alleged. even if the evidence was not properly collected, there are still plenty of chances for conviction, with good testimony. how many CONVICTED rapes were there, in those 3.5 years?
...this sounds a lot like old man Prosser choking that younger bigger Judge...
I’ve never understood why the VA was split out from the rest of the military - it should be under military command just like all the other hospitals and run in the same manner. Eliminate the VA - fold it into the Service structure as a JCS reporting command with a rotating head among the services.
and it’s not “PC”, but even of rapes that aren’t seen immediately as false, (like that college woman who charge the 5 guys, so her boyfriend wouldn’t find out, or the recent one, where she trashed her own apt, so her parents wouldn’t learn she was kicked out of college...),
of cases that made it as far as DNA tests, the FBI statistics show that over 25% CLEARED the accused man.
(and, an additional non-zero amount could have been consentual.)
i advocate death or life in prison for violent rape. but, with the current system, false accusations are very common.
(as are false charges of “domestic violence” by a wife who wants the house in the divorce... a 20 billion dollar industry.)
Always remember: It is not the evidence that counts, but the seriousness of the charges. The legal and psychiatric industries count on your fear and understanding. Thank you.
See thisainthell.us.
Personally I think veteran care should be handled privately, by private docs through contracting or vouchers. We’ve had better success with private docs instead of VA. The military can barely handle the wounded, through no fault of their own as the optempo is still high and there is not enough doctors, etc... I don’t think the military would be able to handle it either. I know what you mean though...the whole thing is so inefficient.
obamanation within the VA....
I was friends with a person on Facebook (she had portrayed herself as wanting to help vets with TBI and/or PTSD) but she was really concerned with MST, or military sexual trauma. I was friends with her until she posted that jokes qualify as MST ( good Lord, jokes
are sexual assault??) and she was posting crap that made every male service member or veteran out to be a sexual predator. I got sick of her and removed her.
Sexual assault does happen in the military and the VA and the perpetrators should be prosecuted... I’m not denying that (I’ve read a lot of the sexual assaults are same sex assaults) but I watched this friend on Facebook for a while and I saw her trying to ride on the back of the TBI/PTSD wave from the current wars. I know I’ll probably get a lot of
grief for saying what I said, but oh well.
Who says all of the assaults are male on female?
Homosexual assaults in the ranks saw an increase prior to the repeal of DA/DT.
Is it unreasonable to think some may be happening in the VA as well?
What a nightmare, if someone like that got into a position of power. Heck, it would be bad enough if they were just employed on your watch. This type of person knows every trick in the book. They could ruin your life.
Good riddance.
Lucky you.
Want to hear the VA spin on this?
“Patient and employee safety and security are paramount at the VA,” said VA press secretary Josh Taylor. “We take all allegations seriously and investigate them thoroughly.”
This statement by the VA is not true, otherwise there would not have been a Congressional hearing on the VA’s ignorance of sexual assaults being committed in their facilities.
I know from personal experience that at least one VA facility doesn’t take sexual assault allegations seriously and that they will not investigate them thoroughly.
I believe the problem with the VA is that the VA managers that are entrusted to keep people safe in VA facilities seem to think that they only owe their allegiance to their paychecks and not to the veterans, employees, and visitors that are being sexually assaulted.
So maybe the best way for the VA management to safeguard their six-figure salaries is to put up a wall of incompetence to any sexual assault complaint that finally comes to their attention.
Knowing all this, does any reasonable person believe the VA is actually going to do something about this latest scandal?
Seriously?
According to the GAO report, there were a total of 20 male-on-male sexual assault incidents involving rape.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11530.pdf
Page 59, Table 6.
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