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Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced he will support changes to the military justice system that would take sexual assault cases away from the chain of command and let independent military lawyers handle them. It's a seismic shift that requires amending the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which no other secretary of defense has been willing to do. (Romo, 6/22)

[Austin] said he will also support the inclusion of other special victims' crimes inside this independent prosecution system, including domestic violence, because of the correlation between these crimes and sexual assault. (Watson, 6/22)

The Pentagon’s top uniformed leaders expressed concerns over plans to shift prosecution of serious crimes — particularly sexual assault — out of the traditional chain of command, according to letters released Tuesday by a chief Republican critic of the proposal. Responding to written questions on the issue from Senate Armed Services ranking member Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., seven of the eight-member Joint Chiefs of Staff suggested the changes could be detrimental, but said they are prepared to follow the law if directed to do so. “It is my professional opinion that removing commanders from prosecution decisions, process and accountability may have an adverse effect on readiness, mission accomplishment, good order and discipline, justice, unit cohesion, trust, and loyalty between commanders and those they lead,” Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley stated in a letter to Inhofe. (Shane III, 6/22)

As Congress and the Department of Defense debate how to address the ongoing scourge of sexual assault and harassment in the military, a study on the Army released Friday found that age, experience and where soldiers are based strongly correlate to both offenses. Women at Fort Hood in particular — where an Army specialist was killed by another soldier last year — have a far higher risk of sexual assault at that base in Texas than the average woman in the Army according to the new study, conducted by the RAND Arroyo Center, a federally funded research group. (Steinhauer, 6/18)