The U.S. Marine Corps’ Response to Intimate Partner Sexual Violence: An Analysis of the Family Advocacy Program and the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program

• Date: 01 July 2022
• Published date: 01 July 2022
• Author: Stephanie Bonnes,Jeffrey H. Palmer
• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X20974397
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X20974397

Armed Forces & Society

2022, Vol. 48(3) 609 –633

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X20974397

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Article

Article

The U.S. Marine Corps’

Response to Intimate

Partner Sexual Violence:

An Analysis of the Family

Advocacy Program and the

Sexual Assault Prevention

and Response Program

Stephanie Bonnes

1

and Jeffrey H. Palmer

2

Abstract

In this article, we show how the U.S. military treats domestic violence and sexual

assault as distinct forms of abuse, which has particular consequences for victims of

intimate partner sexual violence. We explore how a specific U.S. military branch, the

Marine Corps, complicates these issues further by providing services to intimate

partner sexual violence victims from two different programs. Analyzing military

orders and documents related to Family Advocacy Program and Sexual Assault

Prevention and Response program, interviews with eight military prosecutors, and

the experiences of one military lawyer, we examine program and interactional-level

factors that shape victim services, advocacy, and processes. We find that there are

program differences in specialized services, coordinated services, and potential

breaches of confidentiality related to victim’s cases. We recommend that the Marine

Corps recognize the intersections of sexual violence and domestic violence and

offer more tailored services to victims of intimate partner sexual violence.

1

University of New Haven, West Haven, CT, USA

2

United States Marine Corps, Arlington County, VA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Stephanie Bonnes, University of New Haven, West Haven, CT, USA.

Email: sbonnes@newhaven.edu

610 Armed Forces & Society 48(3)

Keywords

military sexual assault, m ilitary justice, intimat e partner violence, gender i ssues,

family issues

Intimate partner violence, specifically intimate partner sexual assault, is an issue

facing all militaries, which has not been carefully dealt with in the scholarly liter-

ature nor well addressed by militaries themselves. While prior research has explored

the issue of sexual assault within the military and domestic violen ce within the

military, these two forms of violence have often been treated as separate and distinct.

Like many militaries, the U.S. military has programs, policies, and guidelines to

address both sexual assault and domestic violence, yet it does not have specific

programs and policies aimed at the intersection of these two forms of violence:

intimate partner sexual assault. This article explores intimate partner sexual assault

in the military though a case study of two programs in the U.S. Marine Corps

(USMC), The Family Advocacy Program (FAP) was designed to address family

violence, and the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) program was

designed to address military sexual assault. Intimate partner sexual violence over-

laps these programs’ missions and provides an opportunity to explore the institu-

tional response to this specific form of assault, one that has unique risk factors,

health outcomes, and barriers to reporting. The objective of this article is to use the

example of intimate partner sexual assault in the U.S. military to highlight the

importance of scholarly and program attention to unique vulnerabilities that indi-

viduals experience in military organizations.

The U.S. military has allocated a great deal of resources to address sexual assualt

within the institution. In the most recent Department of Defense (DoD, 2018) report

on military sexual assault, it was estimated that one in three victims reported their

sexual assaults to the military. This is an improvement in estimated reporting, which

was estimated to be one in 14 victims in 2006 and one in four victims in 2014 (DoD,

2016). While the 2016 SAPR program report estimated an all-time low of sexual

assault prevalence across military branches (4.3%of women and 0.6%of men), the

2018 report found an increase in the estimated prevalence of sexual assault (6.2%of

women and 0.7%of men). The increasing number of estimated sexual assaults and

an estimated increase in proportion of sexual assaults reported to the U.S. military

means that the institution is handling a growing number of cases. Therefore, it is

important to understand how the U.S. military is responding to victims and providing

them with services. This is pa rticularly true for the USMC , a branch where an

estimated 10.7%of female Marines experienced sexual assault, twice the rate of

women in the Air Force (4.3%) and higher than the rate of women in the Army

(5.8%) and the Navy (7.5%; DoD, 2018).

Most research and reports on military sexual assault in the United States, includ-

ing the statistics cited above, focuses on data produced by the SAPR, which omits

those sexually assaulted by an intimate partner whose cases are referred to the FAP.

This is directly related to the fact that domestic violence and sexual assault in the

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