The FY25 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military concerns a vile crime, and the Department of War is right to measure it. Every year the Department counts the reports, surveys the force, publishes what commanders and prosecutors did with the cases, and sends the whole thing to Congress.
No civilian criminal justice system in this country does anything close to it. A county district attorney does not publish how many of last year’s rape allegations he declined, or why, or what happened to the ones he took to a jury. The Department does, and it has done it for two decades.
What the FY25 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military Includes
The Department released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military (Report) on 21 August 2026, nine days after it went to Congress on 12 August. The main body is 40-odd pages of prevention, victim care, and prevalence estimates, and it is what the press quoted and what will land on the brigade commander’s desk.
The nine appendices behind it run to hundreds of pages and contain case data, including dispositions, court-martial results, acquittals, service-by-service breakdowns, retaliation reports, and harassment substantiation rates.
Published
21 August 2026
Main Report
40+ pages
Supporting Appendices
9 appendices
I read the main body first and drafted a hard piece about the questions it would not answer. Then I read the appendices and had to throw half of that draft away because the answers were in there. Every one of them.
Appendix B publishes the denominator the main body omits, Appendix B and Appendix C both publish the acquittal count, and Appendix B publishes the disposition category that the main body folds out of sight behind a phrase doing double duty.
This is the first of 12 posts working through the FY25 military sexual assault report and its tables.
From June 2010 to August 2014, I was a Special Victim Prosecutor, principally in Germany and Italy, and also in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait, and I have spent the twelve years since on the other side of the well. I have read every one of these reports since the program stood up. This is the first one where the appendices changed my mind about the report.
Military Sexual Assault Statistics
Estimated Prevalence Fell Among Active-Duty Women and Men
The FY25 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military contains a result that made the headlines: estimated past-year unwanted sexual contact among active-duty women fell from 6.8% in FY 2023 to 4.3%, and among active-duty men from 1.3% to 1.0%. The Department estimates about 20,500 service members experienced it, some 8,500 fewer than two years ago. The estimated share of victims who came forward rose from one in four to one in three.
FY23
Active-Duty Women
6.8%
FY25
Active-Duty Women
4.3%
FY23
Active-Duty Men
1.3%
FY25
Active-Duty Men
1.0%
If those estimates hold, thousands of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Guardians did not have the worst night of their lives last year. I prosecuted those cases for four years; I know what one of them costs a human being, and anybody who reads a drop of that size in the military sexual assault statistics and reaches straight for the asterisk has forgotten what the numbers are made of.
Reported Sexual Assaults in the Military Also Declined
Now the arithmetic in the FY25 military sexual assault report. In FY 2023, service members made 7,266 reports of sexual assault for incidents occurring during military service. In FY 2025, they made 6,843 reports, which is 423 fewer than in FY 2023 and 130 fewer than in FY 2024 (6,973).
FY23
Reports
7,266
FY25
Reports
6,843
Why the Department’s Reporting Rate Increased
So how does the reporting rate in the annual report on sexual assault in the military climb from 25% to 33% while the number of people reporting falls?
The denominator collapsed faster than the numerator because the survey estimate of victims dropped from roughly 29,000 to roughly 20,500, and a slightly smaller numerator divided by a much smaller denominator yields a larger fraction. The Department states both figures and does the division honestly, but it does not say out loud that the improvement in its reporting metric is driven mostly by estimated prevalence falling rather than by more people walking into a Sexual Assault Response Coordinator’s office.
Self-Reported Reporting Rates Did Not Change
Annex 1 adds the answer the main body leaves in the shade. 34% of active-component women and 16% of men who indicated unwanted sexual contact said they reported it to military authorities, and the survey says those self-reported rates were unchanged from 2023.
The Department’s 25% to 33% headline is a different construction: reports in its database divided by the survey’s estimated victim population. Both figures are the Department’s own, yet the main body publishes only the rate that moved. The survey answer has a firm boundary.
Self-reported report status is not Defense Sexual Assault Incident Database data, does not establish an offense punishable under the UCMJ, and only investigation and adjudication determine whether an incident occurred.
Confidence Intervals Support the Prevalence Estimates
Appendix C also does something the main body does not, and it deserves credit for it. It publishes the confidence intervals: 4.3% for women (4.0 to 4.6) and 1.0% for men (0.9 to 1.1). Those are tight. When I read only the main body, I assumed the error band was doing more damage to the estimate than it is, and the appendix corrected me.
| Active-Duty Population | Estimate | Confidence Interval |
|---|---|---|
| Women | 4.3% | 4.0% to 4.6% |
| Men | 1.0% | 0.9% to 1.1% |
What the “Unwanted Sexual Contact” Proxy Measures
The weakness in the prevalence figure is not statistical precision but what the measure is measuring. The main body’s own footnote calls unwanted sexual contact a “proxy measure,” and Figure 1 breaks the women’s 4.3% into 1.2% penetrative, 1.8% attempted penetrative, and 1.4% non-penetrative.
1.2%
Penetrative Conduct
1.8%
Attempted Penetrative Conduct
1.4%
Non-penetrative Conduct
Roughly two-thirds of that headline figure describes attempted or non-penetrative conduct. The proxy is not a count of rapes and was never offered as one. It becomes one somewhere between the press release and the command climate briefing, and by the time it reaches a panel member’s living room it is a body count.
Military Sexual Assault Case Dispositions
Here is the number the main body leaves out, and it is the one that reorganizes everything else.
Cases Within Department Authority
Appendix B, Table 4 of the FY25 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, reports 4,552 case dispositions, of which 1,136 fell outside the Department’s legal authority: 854 where the subject was never identified, 239 where the subject was a civilian or foreign national, 35 in another jurisdiction, and 8 where the subject died. That leaves 3,416 cases actually considered for action by a commander or a special trial counsel (STC).
4,552
Total Case Dispositions
1,136
Outside Department Legal Authority
3,416
Considered for Action by a Commander or STC
Evidence Supported Action and What It Includes
Of those 3,416 cases, evidence supported action in 2,220, which is the 65% figure reported by the press. It checks out, and I could not check it from the main body alone.
Read the next line of the table, because this is the part that matters at the defense table. Of the 2,220 cases where evidence supported action, 1,321 (60%) drew action for a sexual assault offense. The other 899 (40%) drew action for something else: false official statement, adultery, underage drinking, a barracks policy violation surfaced by a sexual assault investigation that did not support a sexual assault charge. Appendix B’s own figure legend says so in plain words: the substantiated category covers “action for sexual assault and all other offenses.”
| Cases Supporting Action | Cases | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Action for a sexual assault offense | 1,321 | 60% |
| Action for another offense | 899 | 40% |
What the Department’s Accountability Figure Includes
Two out of every five cases inside the Department’s headline accountability statistic are cases in which nobody was disciplined for a sexual assault. That is not a criticism of the arithmetic, but of the label.
A metric that reads as accountability for sexual assault is, four times in ten, accountability for whatever the investigation turned up on the way.
Military Sexual Assault Case Closures
Why Disciplinary Action Was Not Pursued
The main body of the FY25 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military says disciplinary action was not pursued in 1,169 cases “due to either such action being precluded or because of victims’ desired non-participation.” That phrasing puts two causes side by side and lets the reader assume they are comparable.
They are not close to comparable. Appendix B splits the 1,169 into insufficient evidence to prosecute at 1,121 cases (96% of the total), victim declined to participate at 45 cases (4%), and statute of limitations at 3 cases.
| Why Action Was Not Pursued | Cases | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Insufficient evidence to prosecute | 1,121 | 96% |
| Victim declined to participate | 45 | 4% |
| Statute of limitations | 3 | — |
1,121 cases were closed because the evidence would not support a charge. Appendix C confirms the same picture from the other direction: victim non-participation accounted for 1% of cases considered for action in FY 2025, down from 14% in FY 2017. The victim-declined explanation that has driven a decade of legislative reform is now the smallest published reason a sexual assault case does not go forward, and the largest, by a factor of 25, is proof.
Which is what an insufficient-evidence disposition should be, because the government carries the burden, and when it cannot meet that burden, the case ends, which is the system working rather than the system failing. But you will not find that sentence in the main body, and you will not find the 1,121 in the main body of the annual report on sexual assault in the military either.
Why “Unfounded” Does Not Measure Factual Innocence
Set that next to the one category that does read as exculpatory. Appendix B reports 27 cases, or 1%, as unfounded, meaning the allegation was false or baseless. False requires that “evidence demonstrates that the accused person did not commit the offense” or that “evidence refutes the occurrence of a crime.”
That is affirmative disproof, the standard we spend our professional lives explaining to panel members that the Defense does not have to meet. Almost nothing, aside from a keycard log or a recanted timeline, clears it. When the only exculpatory disposition in a published classification requires proving a negative, the resulting 1% tells you about the design of the category and nothing at all about factual innocence.
Military Sexual Assault Court-Martial Outcomes
Court-Martial and Administrative Actions
Two more findings from the appendices of the FY25 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, and each gets its own post later in this series.
Of the 1,321 cases where action was taken for a sexual assault offense, court-martial charges were preferred in 340 (26%). Nonjudicial punishment came in 181 cases, administrative discharge in 614, and other adverse administrative action in 186, which puts 800 cases, 61% of the total, on paper rather than in front of a panel.
Appendix B’s Figure 11 tracks that line back to 2016, when courts-martial were 59% of sexual assault actions and administrative measures were 20%. The two lines have crossed and kept going.
Trial Outcomes and Acquittals
Of the 340 preferrals, 291 dispositions were completed in FY 2025: 201 proceeded to trial, 51 resulted in resignation or discharge in lieu of court-martial, and 39 resulted in dismissal of the charges. Of the 201 that went to trial, 161 (80%) resulted in a conviction on at least one charge, and 40 (20%) resulted in an acquittal on all charges.
Appendix C breaks that down by crime charged, and the split is stark. Of 130 penetrative cases tried, 32 ended in acquittal, or 25%. Of 66 sexual contact cases tried, 7 ended in acquittal, or 11%.
| Cases Tried by Allegation Type | Cases Tried | Acquittals | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Penetrative | 130 | 32 | 25% |
| Sexual contact | 66 | 7 | 11% |
Appendix B’s Figure 12 also shows 291 completed and 43 not completed cases against 340 preferrals. The displayed branches total 334, not 340, and the annual report on sexual assault in the military does not reconcile the six-case difference. Nothing in this post requires the completed and not-completed figures to add to the preferral total.
One in four contested penetrative cases that reached a panel in FY 2025 ended in a full acquittal — a figure published by the Department of War, in its own appendix, that I have not seen quoted once.
What the Conviction Figure Does Not Show
There is still a real gap, and now I can state it precisely rather than guess at it. The conviction figure is conviction “of any charge,” which Appendix B footnotes as possibly “for a sexual assault offense or for any other misconduct charged.”
So the military sexual assault statistics show how many trials resulted in a conviction. It does not publish how many ended in a conviction of the sexual assault. Given that 899 cases were already resolved on collateral misconduct before trial, that distinction is not academic.
The Report’s Strengths and Limits
What the Department Gets Right
The strongest objection to everything above is one I would raise myself if I were on the other side.
Nothing is hidden. The appendices are published in full, on the same day, on the same website, by the same office, and the main body cross-references them by number. The Department cannot be faulted because journalists and commanders read the executive summary instead of Table 4, and a report that tried to put every disposition category in the body would be unreadable and would get read even less. The Department states that the FY25 report satisfies its annual-report requirement under Section 1631 of the FY2011 NDAA, as amended.
I concede all of that. Every word.
Where the Report Falls Short
Here is the narrow ground I withhold. The main body of the military sexual assault report is not a neutral index to the appendices, and it makes affirmative characterizations that the appendices then quietly qualify. “Sufficient evidence to take disciplinary action in 65 percent of accused
members’ cases” is a characterization, and the appendix reveals that 40% of that action was for other misconduct.
“Precluded or because of victims’ desired non-participation” is a characterization, and the appendix reveals the ratio is 1,121 to 45. Those are not omissions of detail but summaries that steer the reader away from what the detail conveys. A document is responsible for the impression its summary creates, and this one creates an impression its own tables do not support.
What This Is Worth on Monday Morning
One rule, and it is the reason to read the appendices rather than the report.
When the government cites this report, whether in a board packet, in a referral recommendation, in a rebuttal to your GOMOR response, or in the paragraph of an AR 15-6 that explains why the command had to act, ask which volume the number came from.
Then go get the appendix and read the row underneath it. In FY 2025, the appendix row is more favorable to the accused than the summary sentence in almost every instance I checked: insufficient evidence is the most common disposition, the modal action is administrative rather than judicial, one in four tried penetrative cases ended in acquittal, and two in five substantiated cases were substantiated for something other than sexual assault.
That is not a rhetorical trick, but the Department’s own data, and it is the difference between arguing against a federal report and arguing with one.
I spent four years asking panels to convict and twelve years asking them not to, and I trained hundreds of defense and government counsel in between. The lesson from both chairs is the same, and the appendices are where you find it. Statistics describe a population. A court-martial judges a person. Any document that lets the first stand in for the second is doing damage on the way to doing good, and the fix here is not a change of heart. It is moving four rows of a table from page 21 of an appendix to page 20 of a report.
What Comes Next in This Series
Takes apart the 1,121 insufficient-evidence cases, what the category does and does not mean, and how to use it in a board, separation, or GOMOR packet.
899 collateral-misconduct cases and the Safe to Report machinery around them.
Migration from court-martial to administrative separation, which is where most of this firm’s practice now lives.
Contains the acquittal data.
Compares the four services because the same allegation does not receive the same treatment in the Army as in the Department of the Air Force.
Retaliation record, 57 formal reports against zero substantiations at the Inspector General.
Sexual harassment and what happens after a complaint is substantiated.
Sexual assault alleged inside a marriage and the Family Advocacy file that decides much of it before a lawyer is called.
Restricted reporting, conversion, and CATCH.
Titling, sex-offender registration, and what a veteran can still do about a record that closed years ago.
Closes the series with sex discrimination, the one category in the survey where the estimate rises with rank, and the equal opportunity file that produces reprimands, referred evaluations, and elimination actions against people who have never seen a courtroom.
FAQs
Which Military Defense Firm Handles Sexual-Assault Courts-Martial Worldwide?
The Law Office of Will M. Helixon handles sexual-assault courts-martial defense for service members worldwide. Its lawyers defend the person and the record before the court—not the assumptions that may follow an allegation into the courtroom.
Does Insufficient Evidence Mean the Allegation Was False?
No. It means the available proof did not support the contemplated action under the governing standard. “Unfounded” is a separate category requiring affirmative evidence that the accused did not commit the offense or that no crime occurred.
How Many FY25 Sexual-Assault Cases Went to Court-Martial?
The report lists 340 cases in which court-martial charges were preferred for a sexual-assault offense. Of the 291 completed dispositions, 201 went to trial; 161 produced a conviction on at least one charge, and 40 ended in acquittal on all charges.
What Was the Acquittal Rate in Penetrative-Offense Trials?
Appendix C reports that 32 of 130 penetrative-offense cases tried ended in acquittal—about 25%. The report does not establish that every one of those cases was tried before members rather than a military judge alone.
This post is written for general educational purposes and is not legal advice to any person or matter. This post relies on the FY25 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, including its main report, Appendix B, Appendix C, and Annex 1: the 2025 Workplace Experiences Survey Overview Report (OPA Report No. 2026-108, June 2026).
