Despite new rules addressing sexual assault among the children of U.S. service members, the federal government failed to fix a flaw that on many military bases has let alleged juvenile abusers escape accountability or treatment. New records obtained by The Associated Press underscore how few child-on-child sex assault reports pursued by military investigators are prosecuted. Federal prosecutors, under pressure to win big convictions, don’t take juvenile sex assault cases because they can be hard to prove and require extra paperwork, former prosecutors say. Army criminal investigators concluded that nearly 90 per cent of juvenile sex crime allegations on bases were credible, records show. In contrast, efforts to pressure the Justice Department to change the way it handles juvenile sex assault prosecutions have floundered.

Source: National Post December 30, 2018 20:06 UTC