I cannot think of a single sexual assault case at any academy that did not involved alcohol. Not one.
And yet people still attacked me for suggesting a total ban on alcohol use by anyone attending a military academy.
I can think of one and I have no doubt that there are more out there that do not involve drugs or alcohol. How do I know? You'll have to PM me if you want the answer to that.
Yes, a total ban on alcohol would be terribly effective as history shows us that Prohibition was highly successful. Similar to the abstinence is the only method movement, if we just ban it all together and say don't drink, we'll never have an issue, assaults will never occur and teens will never get pregnant. How can you teach young adults to treat alcohol with respect if you choose to deny them the opportunity to experiment once legal? At 18, cadets and midshipman are adults and should be addressed as such on all topics. That also means accepting the very real adult consequences for when they choose to make the wrong decision. A ban would be nearly impossible to enforce. When they're 21, federal law says that they possess the requisite judgment to drink. Attending a service academy does not change federal law.
My biggest pet peeve is when people directly link alcohol as the causative factor of sexual assault. The problem is not the alcohol or the drugs, but the person, man or woman, who chooses to take advantage of another person and touch them without their consent in any manner. Alcohol and drugs limit our cognitive ability to reason but the majority of the population do not partake in these substances and then go on to assault others. Instead of blaming the substances, why don't we as a society condemn the individual for their behavior and make them shoulder the responsibility for their actions? The Brock Turner case is a direct example of what happens when the justice system decides to make alcohol the defendant rather then the individual who removed a girl's clothing by a dumpster and proceeded to inflict mental, emotional and physical torture on her, stopping only when two men from another country came to her aid.
These two men made poor decisions and they will face the consequences of their actions. This does not mean USCGA or any other service academy should be seen in a bad light. Cadets are pulled from the general population of the United States without a required interview or evaluation aside from what they choose to put down on paper. It's what the four year process is for, to train prospective officers/leaders and to remove those who are deemed incapable of serving.