THE NEWS CHICK BLOG

UW prof compares military recruiters with child sex predators

Dec 1, 2010, 11:44 AM | Updated: Mar 28, 2011, 3:46 pm

A Seattle woman, who fought allowing military recruiters in local high schools, is the lead author of a report that compares the behaviors of recruiters with the behaviors of sexual predators.

Amy Hagopian, assistant professor with the University of Washington’s Department of Global Health concludes military recruiters are a “threat to the health of adolescents.”

Hagopian says, “A review of the medical literature suggests military service is associated with disproportionately poor health for young people. The youngest recruits have the greatest number of mental disorders in the U.S. military, including alcohol abuse, anxiety syndromes, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.”

The UW published this report about Hagopian’s research, done with Kathy Barker, PhD. It is presented as a commentary in the January 2011 edition of the American Journal of Public Health, under the title “Should We End Military Recruiting in High Schools as a Matter of Child Protection and Public Health?”

Ending military recruiting in schools is something Hagopian and Barker have been trying to do for a long time. In 2005, Garfield High School became the first in the United States to ban military recruiters from their campus. Hagopian was Garfield’s PTSA president at the time and led that effort. Now Hagopian and Barker believe recruiters exhibit behaviors similar to predatory grooming when they enter high schools.

“Grooming behavior is defined as the process by which a child is befriended by a would-be abuser in an attempt to gain the child’s confidence and trust,” Hagopian says.

The Army calls the professor’s claim that military recruiters act like child predators “outrageous and offensive.”

“To say that a military recruiter has the same way of approaching young people that a twisted sexual predator does, is highly offensive and blatantly wrong,” says Douglas Smith, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command in Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Smith says there are about 9,000 Army recruiters working across the country and if anything they serve as role models and mentors to students.

“We show America’s youth what the core values of the Army are – physical fitness, moral fitness, the kinds of behaviors that we expect of our soldiers,” Smith says. “To say these men and women are somehow equivalent to a sex predator is just wrong headed.”

He adds most of the military’s recruits are not students directly out of high school, they’re over 24 years old.

The News Chick Blog

The wife of Seattle attorney Danford Grant moved his car away from one of the alleged crime scenes ...

No Author

Equal justice for Seattle lawyer accused of several rapes?

Has accused serial rapist Danford Grant gotten preferential treatment because both he and his wife are Seattle attorneys?

12 years ago

The Seattle-based I Can Has Cheezburger network now includes 60 humor sites. Many of their 90 emplo...

No Author

Seattle humor network, built with funny cat pictures, becomes a reality TV show

A small Internet empire with a funny name has billions of page views on its network of 60 humor websites based in Seattle. Now, I Can Has Cheezburger has a reality TV show too.

12 years ago

President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney spent a combined $30.33 every second this election cycle. Wa...

No Author

Democracy and dollar signs – 2012 campaign spending

Washington initiative campaigns spent $34 million trying to win your vote, while President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney spent a combined $30.33 every second this election cycle.

12 years ago

Chef Tom Douglas says Seattle’s restaurants are ‘a little homemade’ compared with...

No Author

Chef Tom Douglas says ‘Seattle is a funny restaurant town’

Chef and restaurateur Tom Douglas, with 13 Seattle restaurants and more on the way, says Seattle is a "funny restaurant town."

12 years ago

Investigation continues into why a commander of the Bremerton-based Stennis carrier group was remov...

No Author

New ‘crazy’ conspiracy theory on Stennis Rear Admiral

The Pentagon shoots down theories about why the commander of the USS Stennis Carrier Group was removed from duty and sent back to the homeport in Bremerton.

12 years ago

Seattle photographer Paul Souders captures an adult polar bear up close in Hudson Bay in Churchill,...

No Author

Seattle photographer comes face to face with a polar bear

A wildlife photographer, who lives in Ballard, has taken thousands of stunning shots. None put him on "a razor's edge" more than a series of photos swimming with a polar bear.

12 years ago

UW prof compares military recruiters with child sex predators