Sexual Assault: Preceded by Sexual Harassment? - Essay Sample

Introduction

Sexual assault refers to deliberate voluptuous contact without the other party's consent and always involves compulsion of one to take part in a sexual deed. However, a number of investigators recognize that sexual assault is mostly preceded by sexual harassment defined as unwanted sexual requests that form the ground for a hostile environment for the eventual victim. The paper aims to provide a condensation of Stander and Thomsen's review of prevailing literature on sexual assault. It goes further to give analytical scrutiny of the article through the application of the social process theory.

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Summary of Stander and Thomsen's Review Article on Sexual Assault

Due to an increasing trend in sexual violence within the US military, sexual assault has become conspicuous with the uniformed than civilians. It sounds like some sort of sarcasm because the military as a disciplined force should be a leader in every sector (Stander & Thomsen, 2016). As a major government department where socialization and discipline are core, the military provides the best setting to study sexual assault. Brief existing literature examination, sexual ordeal pervasiveness rates, the impacts on fatalities, risk trauma prevalence rates, its impacts on individuals, risk causes, and available prevention programs are a few areas that the review touches.

In terms of prevalence rates, the available data from the official treatment facilities of the American military reveals that 15% to 36% of the military women veterans are victims or were victims to sexually assault, while another 1% to 2% of men also had the same fate (McCann, 2014). The portrayed result is only attainable when the facility asks each of the patient two main questions which are whether the patients receive any undesired voluptuous interest and whether an individual used to force them into sexual favors without consent (Stander & Thomsen, 2016). Though a number of studies touching on prevalence rates exist, there are no clear records that state the values in a comprehensive number because they are scanty to be used for comparison purposes. The inconsistencies mainly arise due to methodological differences (McCann, 2014).

In regards to impacts on victims' documentation, there exists sufficient research that puts the effects to be either long term or short term. Pain and chronic illness are listed as some of the long-term effects on military victims that result from sexual assault (Pemberton, 2015). However, there is still some complexity in the effects on victims because determining whether the impact is from sexual assault or sexual harassment is difficult due to the similarity of their impacts.

There are various risks and protective factors associated with sexual assault that stems from the fact that the violence is high on military personnel. No research has brought forth conclusive results to the associated risk and protective factors to the high levels of sexual assault in the military, thus what exists can be termed as speculations with a strong association (Stander & Thomsen, 2016). Military lifestyle, culture, and the structure are viewed as major risk factors associated with the rampant sexual assault. The article indicates that these risks have only been proven to work in the civilian scope and their implication here is just by the assumption that even those in the military are human beings.

Finally, the development of response policies and by standards that are applicable in accordance with the highlighted risk factors are what is in the plan to help prevent and curbs sexual assault menace in the military camps. The article ends by giving future recommendations in terms of things that should be put in place to help reverse the trend (Lemert, 1967). The article also indicates the appropriate research gaps that exist in sexual assault within the US military.

Social Process Theory

It is an approach to criminal activities that views socialization and social learning as an appropriate tool that helps curb aspects of engaging in antisocial norms through instilling self-control. When applied in the literature from Stander and Thomsen's review, social process theory does not hold because when the military come together even in the line of duty it is viewed as socialization, thus should curb sexual assault which is an antisocial behavior (Brown, Esbensen, & Geis, 2012). However, Brown et al (2012) further note that this is far from reality as the sexual assault incidences are always on the rise within the US military and now stand at close to 20,000.

Conclusion

The summary described the instance of sexual assault as an act of making an individual engage in a sexual act without proper components and concludes that it is almost similar to sexual harassment, though the latter precedes the former. Stander and Thomsen's review article revealed that the US military is a hotbed of sexual assault activities as the number keeps on rising annually. Prevalence rates, risk factors, and appropriate prevention techniques are the few factors that the article review tackled, thus summarized in our paper. The paper concluded by providing future recommendations on necessary research gaps to be filled.

References

Brown, S. E., Esbensen, F.-A., & Geis, G. (2012). Criminology: explaining crime and its context (10 ed.). London and New York, Britain: Routledge: Taylor&Francis Group.

Lemert, E. M. (1967). Human deviance, social problems, and social control. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall.

McCann, B. J. (2014, March 26). On whose ground? racialized violence and the prerogative of "self-defense" in the Trayvon Martin case. Western Journal of Communication, 78(4), 480-499. DOI: 10.1080/10570314.2014.901552.

Pemberton, S. X. (2015, July 13). Criminal justice as state racism: race-making, state violence, and imprisonment in the USA, and England and Wales. New Political Science, 37(3), 321-345. DOI: 10.1080/07393148.2015.1056429.

Stander, V. A., & Thomsen, C. J. (2016, January 1). Sexual harassment and assault in the U.S. military: a review of policy and research trends. Military Medicine, 181(1), 20-27. DOI: 10.7205/MILMED-D-15-00336.