How Military Sex Offenders Fly Under the Radar at Home
JUDY WOODRUFF: The issue of sexual assaults in the military has been front and center in recent years, and has sparked a heated political debate.
Tonight, we take a look what happens when some sexual offenders are released from the armed services.
Correspondent Mark Greenblatt of the Scripps News Service investigative unit has our story.
MARK GREENBLATT: In the calm of Central Wisconsin’s rolling hills, big-city dangers seem as if they’re an entire world away. Yet, right here in the small town of Reedsburg, population 10,000, a serial sex offender from the military chose his latest victim, an unsuspecting civilian.
WOMAN: I can’t sleep at night knowing that that man was in our house and that I didn’t catch it, I didn’t know it, I didn’t realize it, I didn’t suspect anything.
…
MARK GREENBLATT: Separately, a DOD official e-mailed us to say that, if Congress required it, the DOD could register an offender officially, but the onus would remain on offenders to re-register as they move from state to state. And he concluded it would have no practical effect upon the problem.
But the mother from Wisconsin is not convinced.
WOMAN: I would ask him if he has a daughter and how he would feel if this had happened to his own daughter.
More: How Military Sex Offenders Fly Under the Radar at Home
I wonder if a “dishonorable discharge” or “general discharge” is an indication of crimes committed while serving in the military?