Pentagon grapples with sex crimes by military recruiters

Rape is a crime and if guilty, the criminal needs to go to jail. So what's the problem?

Pentagon grapples with sex crimes by military recruiters
By Craig Whitlock
The Washington Post
Published: May 13, 2013

Military recruiters across the country have been caught in a string of sex-crime scandals over the past year, exposing another long-standing problem for the Defense Department as it grapples with a crisis of sexual assault in the ranks.

In Alaska, law enforcement officials are fuming after a military jury this month convicted a ­Marine Corps recruiter of ­first-degree sexual assault in the rape of a 23-year-old female civilian but did not sentence him to prison.

In Texas, an Air Force recruiter will face a military court next month on charges of rape, forcible sodomy and other crimes involving 18 young women he tried to enlist over a three-year period. Air Force officials have described the case as perhaps the worst involving one of its recruiters.

In Maryland, Army officials are puzzling over a murder-suicide last month, when a staff sergeant, Adam Arndt, killed himself after he fatally shot Michelle Miller, a 17-year-old Germantown girl whom he had been recruiting for the Army Reserve. Officials suspect the two were romantically involved, something expressly forbidden by military rules. read more here