Training can prevent sexual assaults
The Air Force has a strong commitment to reducing the number of sexual assaults using prevention training to bring awareness to this crime along with offering reporting options for victims. The 4th Fighter Wing Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office provides training to identify risky situations and encourage responsible choices. Through bystander intervention training, Airmen are taught that they must be aware of the situation around them and their friends, and be ready to step in and act when needed. This awareness can change a situation and ultimately prevent a crime.
Most sexual assaults that occur here involve alcohol and are usually committed by someone the victim knows or works with. This is referred to as date or acquaintance rape. After this type of rape is committed, friends may take sides with either the alleged victim or perpetrator, thus creating havoc within a unit. Often, it could have been prevented if someone had just stepped in or said something. Is it uncomfortable to step in? Maybe, but it is what the Air Force expects you to do. Besides, how would you feel if you did nothing and someone was sexually assaulted?
While we know the majority of people are not rapists or abusers and would not hurt someone they care about, there are still some among us who would prey on an unsuspecting person. Every day we are bombarded with movies, magazines, television and music depicting women as weak, submissive or degraded. Alcohol is frequently a part of the equation. We become desensitized by what we see and hear and, over time, we come to view this as normal behavior.
Department of Defense and Air Force training is promoting a change and forces us to relook at what we can do to prevent sexual assaults.
Annual training arms Airmen with information to help protect them and their friends or co-workers and provide support to victims. Victim advocates, after completing their training, frequently comment on how it has opened their eyes and changed the way they look at movies, magazines and television.
For additional information or questions, contact the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response office at 722-0155.