WASHINGTON — Suicides among active-duty soldiers hit a new high in 2011, Army officials said on Thursday, although there was a slight decrease in suicides overall, if non-mobilized Reserve and National Guard troops were included in the calculation.
The Army also reported a sharp increase, of 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.
“This is unacceptable,” Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the outgoing vice chief of staff of the Army, said of the violent sex offenses, “We have zero tolerance for this.” General Chiarelli, speaking at a news conference, said the factors driving the increase in sex crimes were alcohol use and new barracks that offered soldiers more privacy than in the past. He also said it was possible that more victims were stepping forward to report crimes.
General Chiarelli said that 164 active-duty soldiers and active-duty National Guard and Reserve forces committed suicide in 2011, compared with 159 in 2010 and 162 in 2009. The increase occurred even as the Army has stepped up mental health and drug and alcohol counseling, in large part as a response to a steady increase in suicides that began in 2004.
Asked if he was frustrated by the jump last year in active-duty suicides, General Chiarelli said he was not.
“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?” General Chiarelli said. He said that “for all practical purposes, for the last two to three years, it has leveled off.”
If non-mobilized National Guard and Reserve units are included, the total number of suicides in 2011 is 278, down from 305 in 2010.
General Chiarelli held the news conference to release a new report, “Generating Health & Discipline in the Force,’’ a 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 well before Thursday, did not include the final number of 164 active-duty suicides for 2011. General Chiarelli disclosed that statistic at the news conference, as well as the number of active-duty suicides from 2008 to 2010 at the news conference.
Active-duty Army suicide rates have been higher than civilian rates since 2008, when there were approximately 19.6 suicides per 100,000 in the Army compared to 17.7 suicides per 100,000 in a civilian population that was adjusted to be comparable to Army demographics. In 2011, the Army projects that there will be 24.1 active-duty suicides per 100,000, another record high.
The rise in Army suicides has long been attributed to the stress of repeated deployments during a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, although Army officials say there are many other factors at work.