Essay Example on Domestic Violence in the Army: An Ethical Issue

Introduction

Ethics refers to the integral conduct that creates a sound moral foundation and order in any given organization or institution (de Graaff et al., 2017). The absence of ethical conduct in a field, for instance, in the Army, may lead to disorders. An excellent example of unethical conduct in the Army is the perpetration of domestic violence between soldiers. A wide range of factors can contribute to the high levels of domestic misbehaviors in the Army. Factors like frequent moves, financial difficulties, and stress due to deployment may impact the soldiers more than even normal civilians.

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In America, the most violent area is not the prisons; neither is it the biker's bar, and not the dark alleys in the city. In America, home is instead considered the most violent place. In every three violent crimes one experiences, one of them must always have occurred at his or her home. Violent crimes comprise simple assault, murder, rape, and sexual aggravation. 1.29 million victims in the year 2016, committed an acquittance, either casual or intimate (Carrick et al., 2017). Almost one million of the victims were mistreated near their homes. Some were even victimized at their own homes.

The primary significance of coming up with this paper was to illustrate the problem of domestic assault, which occurs mainly in the US army. Also included in the paper is the impact of domestic assault in the US army, its leading cause, and the solutions recommended to curb the problem. As professionals in the defense sector, the event of unethical conduct such as domestic abuse lessens the reliability of the profession (Carrick et al., 2017. And this is the reason why the senior Noncommissioned Officers have to be role models to the other soldiers in practicing ethical behaviors.

The leading cause of domestic assault in the US army

Within the years 2003 and 2010, the general issues of domestic assault in the US reduced; nevertheless, the value, within the same period, rose by 177 percent (Nagel, 2019). The reason behind the rise in the cases of domestic violence in the US Army was associated with the soldiers returning from deployments, deprived of traumatic brain injuries, and post-traumatic stress disorders. Other reasons behind the higher rate of increase in domestic violence in the US army include final burdens, higher stress levels due to rigorous training and deployments, and frequent moves.

To understand the other key causes of domestic assaults in the US army, one must also comprehend the individual's psyche. The unethical practice, domestic abuse, occurs mainly when one partner feels to dominate or control the other. This act can occur for reasons that include; loss of ability to control anger, extreme jealousy, or when a soldier feels that a partner is so inferior to him or her in terms of significance. The alcohol intake is also a key factor that perpetuates the cycle of the malpractice.

In the Army, there are usually chances of getting couples that are both soldiers but of different ranks-considering the hierarchical system in the Army, where, much significance is given to one a higher rank than one on the lower side. This system of respecting the rank than any other things may lead to conflicts in case the couples are both in the same place but in different ranks. In families with only one member in the Army, there might be a difficulty for the soldier to leave power, influence, and rank at his or her workplace (Carrick et al., 2017. The mentioned are not excuses but plausible possibilities as to why there is a higher rate of domestic abuse in the Army than any other field.

The higher increase rates in the domestic violence in the Army impact public perception, readiness, victims, and indeed retention. The remaining section of the paper illustrates the impacts of the unethical act of domestic violence on the Army.

Impacts of domestic violence on the Army

Domestic violence influences the Army in several ways which include, expenditures on the cost of supporting the victims affected by the violence, negative public insight of profession, and the premature discharge of the personnel in the field of Army. Usually, the abused partners do not report cases of abuse by their fellow because they don't want them to lose their careers in the military. A research conducted by the Defense Department showed that the soldiers reported for domestic abuse had a higher chance of being discharged from the Army than any other Soldier in the Army (Carrick et al., 2017. For instance, the soldiers lose their career and their value of being in the Army.

An Act, the Crime Victims Compensation, came up with a compensation program whose aim was to financially support the victims of domestic violence and their families and encourage anyone who gets assaulted to report the Action with immediate effect. Even though the federal government lacks a program for compensating the crime victims, each state in the United States does have a compensation program. In case of such unethical practices, the victim affected contacts the state where the Action happened, and suppose the criminal is a soldier, the state where the crime is located is identified. The financial support from the program comes from the individual states where the Action takes place.

Another important compensation program is the Army Transition Program. This program is mainly meant for compensating the abused dependents of the Army. The qualification for receiving this compensation is that the soldier must be administratively separated or court-martialed of a dependent abuse crime. In this case, two-folds of the force is affected. Firstly, a member of the force is no longer part of the Army, and secondly, the Army uses its budget to compensate the victim for the offense. According to Carrick et al. (2017), compensation also depends on the number of kids the offended victim has, and can even exceed $50,00 per dependent on the abused.

Domestic assaults influence the Army by lowering the discipline good conduct of the whole unit. This malpractice is even worse when the accused is an NCO office, and who is a steward of the career (Schneider & Bradley, 2018). When the domestic violence takes place and is never reported, it adds stress to the dependent of the Army and leaves the abused in an emotionally and mentally unstable state within the ranks in the military.

The person, due to their low performance in the Army can be deployed or the worse can happen when he or she is charged with the leading soldiers in the Army. US army has made attempts to implement several programs whose aim is lowering the rate of domestic violence. The next section of this article illustrates the programs put forward by the Army to curb the issue of domestic violence. The section also discusses some solutions that can also aid in curbing the issue but are not currently being put in use.

Solutions

The Department of Defense is currently coming up with strategies that can aid in lowering the rates of domestic violence in the field of military. In case the abuse occurs off-post, the strategies suggest the local police have no right to take the blame to the military officials, often the military does not understand when the offense has occurred. Efforts are made to allow reconstruct laws and grant the military officials the right to the details of such abuse. This measure will also make sure that the dependents and victims are protected by the Family Advocacy System.

Later in 1987, it was agreed that the month of October would be meant for Domestic Assault Awareness, which was later supported by the US army in the year 2015, and agreed to observe it. In supporting the movement, the US Army further emphasized that domestic assaults will be eliminated, and no one will ever support the unethical practice.

The US Army also came up with prevention and awareness measures to be implemented, and these included: supporting positive relationships, encouraging the seeking of help in issues concerning the domestic violence issue, and development of life and coping skills. Besides all, the measures encouraged the individuals to report the abusive incidences they face as soon as they face them. The US Army provides many programs for soldiers and their couples, and such programs include strong marriage retreat bonds and resilience training for soldiers together with their marital partners.

Family life consultants are also employed in the Army to help couples in the military field to solve issues involved in their marriage. The recommended solutions and outcomes of the current programs used are better illustrated and described when viewed through the ethical lens.

Three ethical lenses are usually applied to decide on outcomes and recommendations. These lenses include the outcome-based lens, virtues-based reasoning lens, and the rule-based lens. The rule-based reasoning ethical lens is the simplest holding soldiers accountable when going against domestic law. A key rule of the domestic violation is the Lautenberg Amendment, which restricts individuals engaged in domestic violence from carrying or owning a weapon. Also, the course of Action, for any soldier affected by the Lautenberg's Amendment, was to be discharged out of the military.

Getting discharged would ruin the affected individual's military carrier. Getting informed of this and that it is an order for the leaders in the Army to hand over any report of a soldier committing the unethical practice can influence a military leader to report the practices at their occurrence, or to encourage the affected to report the issue by themselves. The above choice goes above all the ethics embraced by the military.

The next is virtue-based reasoning, which brings into line the individual values with the seven army values. For instance, this should be a must training for every soldier to create awareness against the unethical practice, domestic assault. The awareness trains to stop the domestic abuse, trains the soldiers to be successful and to keep safe during missions so as to continue supporting their families. The training also creates an ethical dilemma on the dangers of domestic violence. As a leader in the military, such consultations are likely to prop out and an essential idea to unravel the problem would be incorporating Morale with domestic awareness.

Programs set in place in the military sector to create legal policies and awareness on domestic violence are by accordingly dealing with the abuser. Even though there are programs set by the Department of Defense to compensate the victims affected by the assault, there are no current programs of screening the soldiers and checking on their mental stability.

Considering these approaches to curb the malpractice, screening the recruits seems the best approach to curb the malpractice. Nevertheless, making it mandatory for all the enlistees to provide their MRI test, blood test, or both may stigmatize childhood mental disorders like PTSD and TBI. The measure might also reduce the recruiting pool by just assuming that individuals with TBI and PTDS cannot be good soldiers, though the shock may have successfully been eliminated.

Conclusion

The paper analyzes the ethical issues of domestic violence that occurs in the US Army. Causes of the unethical practice in the US military, as covered by the article, include financial difficulties, higher stress levels due to stress from deployment from work, frequent moves. The key cause is the change in the number of soldiers who operate with some pre-existing mental disorders like PTSD. Frequency in which domestic violence occurs can be regulated if and only the US military introduces the modern machines for screening and employing the modern screening methods in the long run.