In these days of newspapers downsizing and widespread layoffs, investigative series -- because they chew up so much time and effort -- are getting significantly rarer and less likely to happen. That's a real shame, because we've learned some great things from deep and wide-ranging investigative pieces over the years -- the work of the Boston Globe's "Spotlight" team comes to mind, as well as that of the Washington Post. On that level, it's great to see that the Sacramento Bee invested major resources in their series being published this week, starting last Sunday with the initial installment, "Suspect Soldiers: Troubled Histories Follow Some Troops to Iraq War," linked here. (There are multiple other installments -- follow that first link to find the others.) Here's what the SacBee says it took to pull off their series:
In reporting "Suspect Soldiers," Bee reporter Russell Carollo focused primarily on people entering the military since the Iraq war began in 2003 and on those linked to incidents in Iraq.
He also examined cases of returning veterans whose crimes were believed linked to post-traumatic stress disorder, and found that several had pre-Iraq criminal records that offered another explanation for their subsequent criminal behavior.
His interviews spanned 30 states, including 200 people ranging from police officers and court officials to soldiers and Marines – and their families. He filed more than 100 public records requests, yielding millions of computer records and thousands of pages of courts-martial files, military investigative reports and civilian court and police records.
A prodigious, considerable, commendable effort on the part of the SacBee. Now here's the part I don't like. I read the first installment, and as hungry as I am for news on this topic, I don't think I'll go back and read the rest. Why? Several reasons:
1. Not really their fault (the reporters), but what was found, didn't really seem that significant after all, proportionally speaking. A few arrests here and there beforehand, some incomplete disclosures of recruits' backgrounds before enlisting or re-enlisting, a percentage of troubled histories after the fact. But none of this was super compelling. Had the offenses been larger, and with a greater link established to the same types of offenses being committed after enlistment -- or a greater percentage of prior offenders re-offending, I would have been more impressed. Again, not the reporters' fault -- they asked the questions, they mined the data, they're purely dealing with what they found. No one wants them making things up just to get a better outcome. However, it does make me wonder -- why exactly weren't those links stronger? Could be for any number of reasons, but here are two:
a. They're actually ahead of the trend they're trying to analyze; and if they're on the right path, it may just be the timing that's off -- and if they check back in a few years or even a year, using later data, they may find stronger linkages or stronger patterns to report.
b. The military may not be doing a good enough job of investigating crimes on its watch, so the back end and the front end aren't effectively tied together enough. There may be -- let's face it, there are -- servicemembers dying and being injured by one another where the crime isn't being investigated for what it is. If this side of the data is weak, no matter how great and/or thorough a job the SacBee reporting team did, there's a limit to what they're going to find.
2. There's a different project I wish they'd done instead, now that I've seen the results of the first. One particular issue of concern to me, after reading about the "double whammy" of Military Sexual Trauma (MST) that we've talked about before on this blog -- is whether a different/better study could have been done, restricting the scope to crimes against women servicemembers. This seems to be a whole subset of crimes committed while in the service that could seriously use deeper, further study. Just the way that historically medical research dollars were spent almost exclusively on studies on male patients (look it up, it's true) and women were considered, when it came to medical studies, for years to be nothing more than "junior men;" perhaps the same institutional prejudice is happening here.
There are some very troubling stories in the news -- if you look around, you will find them -- and there certainly are concerned parents, friends and spouses who know the stories as well -- about women servicemembers and contractors who have been greatly harmed or even murdered, and whose deaths or sexual assaults have not been investigated fully, comprehensively or well. Not "all," but a significant "some" -- where even one is too many. See cases of Army Private LaVena Johnson, profiled in Salon and elsewhere, linked here; and Jamie Leigh Jones'allegations against KBR, linked here. And then there are the random cases we learn about in the news -- various creepy guys in the military (hey, they have them too) murdering their often also active duty military girlfriends. (Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean and fellow Marine Maria Lauterbach, but they're only one example. There are at least three more in the news just this week; and try a Google search for "soldier murders girlfriend" or words to that effect, and you'll be tripping over results -- it's really unfortunate.)
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Okay: long buildup for short point: how about just studying in a focused way, crimes against women in the military by other servicemembers? And then see what relationship, if any, the accused's background has on the likelihood of his committing a crime against women while serving? I hate to cry gender bias, because it's often so institutional that no one even notices it's there -- but all the more reason to think about it. The main Sacramento Bee reporters on this series do seem to be men. One thing we know for sure -- the effects of Military Sexual Traumaare devastating -- worse than PTSD, and often coupled with PTSD, according to reports. So if the damage is that severe -- can't we work backwards from that and concentrate on prevention? And part of that might be a good study or three to determine if there IS any relationship between male servicemembers' criminal pasts, where they exist, and crimes against women in the military -- especially crimes of a sexual nature.
It does seem that some of unexplained deaths of women servicemembers -- which the military sometimes calls suicides, even when faced with evidence that would seem to contradict this claim -- are actually murders to cover up rapes and the like. Of course men commit sexual crimes against other men in the military, too -- but predominantly, we're talking about women in this instance. Given the severity of the consequences to the women who are harmed (read up on Military Sexual Traumaif you don't at first agree), it would be well worth investigating better methods for preventing this degree of harm, from one servicemember to another. Those are some "suspect soldiers" it would really be great to weed out. Women servicemembers signed up to serve their country -- they shouldn't need to worry about harm coming from their fellow servicemembers.
