Protect Our Military Children: Congress Must Rectify Jurisdiction on Military Installations to Address Juvenile-on-Juvenile Sexual Assault

Abstract

Exclusive federal legislative jurisdiction on military installations creates a black hole for juvenile justice — federal prosecutors routinely decline to prosecute juvenile-on-juvenile sexual assault cases and local prosecutors lack legal authority to apply state juvenile delinquency laws. Although Congress passed legislation in 1970 permitting the transfer of exclusive federal legislative jurisdiction over federal lands back to the surrounding states, it left the decision to seek the return, or retrocession, of such jurisdiction to the discretion of the Secretary of each individual executive department. The Department of Defense (DoD) has retroceded exclusive federal legislative jurisdiction over juvenile crimes on military installations only a handful of times despite clear indicators that the non-prosecution of juvenile-on-juvenile sexual assaults is a loathsome trend across the force. (For instance, a memo from Fort Hood, Texas, revealed thirty-nine cases of reported juvenile-on-juvenile sexual assault from 2006 to 2012, without a single federal juvenile delinquency prosecution.) Congress must statutorily require the DoD to seek retrocession of exclusive federal legislative jurisdiction over juvenile crimes on all military installations to the surrounding states and extend the reach of justice into the lives of military children sexually victimized by their juvenile peers.