WASHINGTON — Suicides among active-duty soldiers hit another record high in 2011, Army officials said Thursday, although there was a slight decrease in suicides if nonmobilized reserve and National Guard troops were included in the calculation.
The Army also reported a sharp increase, nearly 30 percent, in violent sex crimes last year by active-duty troops. More than half of the victims were active-duty female soldiers between 18 and 21 years of age.
“This is unacceptable,” Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the outgoing vice chief of staff of the Army, said at a news conference, referring to the jump in violent sex offenses. “We have zero tolerance for this.”
Chiarelli said factors driving the increase in sex crimes were alcohol use and new barracks that offered more privacy. He said it was also possible that reporting of the offenses had increased.
Chiarelli said that 164 active-duty Army, National Guard and reserve forces took their own lives in 2011, compared with 159 in 2010 and 162 in 2009. The increase occurred even as the Army expanded suicide prevention efforts and drug and alcohol counseling, in large part in response to a steady rise in Army suicides that began in 2004.
Asked if he was frustrated by the jump last year in suicide by active-duty soldiers, Chiarelli said no.
“The question you have to ask yourself, and this is the number that no one can prove, what would it have been if we had not focused the efforts that we focused on it?” he said. He said that “for all practical purposes, for the last two to three years, it has leveled off.”
Chiarelli held the news conference to release the review of the overall health of the Army after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the longest period of conflict in the nation’s history. The report, printed before Thursday, did not include the final number of 164 suicides among active-duty soldiers for 2011. Chiarelli disclosed that statistic at the news conference.
Chiarelli said if nonmobilized National Guard and reserve units are included, Army suicides dropped to 278 from 305 in 2010.
Active-duty Army suicide rates have been higher than civilian rates since 2008, when there were nearly 20 suicides per 100,000 in the Army, compared to close to 18 suicides per 100,000 in a civilian population that was adjusted to be comparable to Army demographics.