Military Personnel: Preliminary Observations on DOD's and the Coast Guard's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Programs
Published: 2008-07-31T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: In 2004, Congress directed the Department of Defense (DOD) to establish a comprehensive policy to prevent and respond to sexual assaults involving servicemembers. Though not required to do so, the Coast Guard has established a similar program. This statement addresses the extent to which DOD and the Coast Guard (1) have developed and implemented policies and programs to prevent, respond to, and resolve sexual assault incidents involving servicemembers; (2) have visibility over reports of sexual assault; and (3) exercise oversight over reports of sexual assault. This statement draws on GAO's preliminary observations from an ongoing engagement examining DOD's and the Coast Guard's programs to prevent and respond to sexual assault. In conducting its ongoing work GAO reviewed legislative requirements and DOD and Coast Guard guidance, analyzed sexual assault incident data, and obtained through surveys and interviews the perspective on sexual assault matters of more than 3,900 servicemembers stationed in the United States and overseas. The results of GAO's survey and interviews provide insight into the implementation of the programs but are nongeneralizable. GAO expects to issue its final report in August 2008 and to make a number of recommendations to improve implementation of sexual assault prevention and response programs and improve oversight of the programs in both DOD and the Coast Guard.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: DOD and the Coast Guard have established policies and programs to prevent, respond to, and resolve reported sexual assault incidents involving servicemembers; however, implementation of the programs is hindered by several factors. GAO found that (1) DOD's guidance may not adequately address some important issues, such as how to implement its program in deployed and joint environments; (2) most, but not all, commanders support the programs; (3) program coordinators' effectiveness can be hampered when program management is a collateral duty; (4) required sexual assault prevention and response training is not consistently effective; and (5) factors such as a DOD-reported shortage of mental health care providers affect whether servicemembers who are victims of sexual assault can or do access mental health services. Left unchecked, these challenges can discourage or prevent some servicemembers from using the programs when needed. GAO found, based on responses to its nongeneralizeable survey administered to 3,750 servicemembers and a 2006 DOD survey, the most recent available, that occurrences of sexual assault may be exceeding the rates being reported, suggesting that DOD and the Coast Guard have only limited visibility over the incidence of these occurrences. At the 14 installations where GAO administered its survey, 103 servicemembers indicated that they had been sexually assaulted within the preceding 12 months. Of these, 52 servicemembers indicated that they did not report the sexual assault. GAO also found that factors that discourage servicemembers from reporting a sexual assault include the belief that nothing would be done; fear of ostracism, harassment, or ridicule; and concern that peers would gossip. Although DOD and the Coast Guard have established some mechanisms for overseeing reports of sexual assault, neither has developed an oversight framework--including clear objectives, milestones, performance measures, and criteria for measuring progress--to guide their efforts. In compliance with statutory requirements, DOD reports data on sexual assault incidents involving servicemembers to Congress annually. However, DOD's report does not include some data that would aid congressional oversight, such as why some sexual assaults could not be substantiated following an investigation. Further, the military services have not provided sufficient data to facilitate oversight and enable DOD to conduct trend analyses. While the Coast Guard voluntarily provides data to DOD for inclusion in its report, this information is not provided to Congress because there is no requirement to do so. To provide further oversight of DOD's programs, Congress, in 2004, directed DOD to form a task force to undertake an examination of matters relating to sexual assault in which members of the Armed Forces are either victims or offenders. However, as of July 2008, the task force has not yet begun its review. Without an oversight framework, as well as more complete data, decision makers in DOD, the Coast Guard, and Congress lack information they need to evaluate the effectiveness of the programs.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to discuss issues related to  the Department of Defense’s (DOD) and Coast Guard’s programs to  prevent, respond to, and resolve reported incidents of sexual assault. As  you know, sexual assault is a crime that contradicts the core values that  DOD, the military services, and the Coast Guard expect servicemembers  to follow, such as treating their fellow members with dignity and respect.  Recognizing this, Congress in 2004 directed the Secretary of Defense to  develop a comprehensive policy for DOD on the prevention of and  response to sexual assaults involving servicemembers, including an option  that would enable servicemembers to confidentially disclose an incident of  sexual assault. Since 2005, active duty servicemembers have had two  options for reporting an alleged sexual assault: (1) restricted, which allows  victims of sexual assault to disclose a sexual assault incident to specific  individuals and receive medical care and other victim advocacy services  without initiating a criminal investigation; and (2) unrestricted, which  entails notification of the chain of command and may trigger a criminal  investigation. Although these requirements do not apply to the Coast  Guard, which is overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, the  Coast Guard has adopted similar reporting options.
Mr. Chairman, you have recognized the need to shed light on this  important issue. Specifically, you asked GAO to examine sexual assault  prevention and response programs at the military academies as well as at  military installations within DOD and the Coast Guard and during  deployments. In response, we issued a report in January 2008 that  reviewed programs to address sexual assault and sexual harassment at the  military and Coast Guard academies. This August, we will issue our  follow-on report examining DOD’s and the Coast Guard’s programs to  prevent and respond to sexual assault, including during deployments. A  draft of this report is currently with the agencies for comment. Thus, our  findings and recommendations have not been finalized.
My testimony today is based on our preliminary observations from our  ongoing work requested by this committee. Specifically, my testimony  today will address the extent to which DOD and the Coast Guard    have developed and implemented policies and programs to prevent,  respond to, and resolve sexual assault incidents involving  servicemembers;    have visibility over reports of sexual assault involving servicemembers;    exercise oversight over reports of sexual assault involving  servicemembers.
To obtain our preliminary observations, we reviewed legislative  requirements; reviewed DOD’s, the military services’, and the Coast  Guard’s guidance and requirements for the prevention of, response to, and  resolution of sexual assault; analyzed sexual assault incident data; and  visited 15 military installations in the United States and overseas to assess  implementation of the programs. At the installations we visited, we met  with sexual assault prevention and response program coordinators; victim  advocates; judge advocates; medical and mental health personnel; criminal  investigative personnel; law enforcement personnel; chaplains; various  military commanders, including company and field grade officers; and  senior enlisted servicemembers. We also obtained the perspective of more  than 3,900 servicemembers by administering a total of 3,750 confidential  surveys to a nonprobability sample of randomly selected servicemembers  and conducting more than 150 one-on-one, structured interviews with  randomly selected servicemembers at 14 of the 15 locations we visited.  Our survey is the first since 2006 to obtain the perspectives of selected  servicemembers in each military service and the Coast Guard on sexual  assault issues and the first to assess sexual assault issues in the Coast  Guard since the restricted reporting option became available in December  2007. Because we did not select survey and interview participants using a  statistically representative sampling method, our survey results and the  comments provided during our interview sessions are nongeneralizable  and therefore cannot be projected across DOD, a service, or any single  installation we visited. However, the survey results and comments provide  insight into the command climate and implementation of sexual assault  prevention and response programs at each location at the time of our visit.
We conducted this performance audit from July 2007 through July 2008 in  accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those  standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient,  appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and  conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence  obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions  based on our audit objectives.
subsections: section_title: Background
paragraphs: In October 2004, Congress included a provision in the Ronald W. Reagan  National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 that required the  Secretary of Defense to develop a comprehensive policy for DOD on the  prevention of and response to sexual assaults involving members of the  Armed Forces. The legislation required that the department’s policy be  based on the recommendations of the Department of Defense Task Force  on Care for Victims of Sexual Assaults and on such other matters as the  Secretary considered appropriate. Among other things, the legislation  required DOD to establish a standardized departmentwide definition of  sexual assault, establish procedures for confidentially reporting sexual  assault incidents, and submit an annual report to Congress on reported  sexual assault incidents involving members of the Armed Forces.
In October 2005, DOD issued DOD Directive 6495.01, which contains its  comprehensive policy for the prevention of and response to sexual assault,  and in June 2006 it issued DOD Instruction 6495.02, which provides  guidance for implementing its policy. DOD’s directive defines sexual  assault as “intentional sexual contact, characterized by the use of force,  physical threat or abuse of authority or when the victim does not or  cannot consent. It includes rape, nonconsensual sodomy (oral or anal  sex), indecent assault (unwanted, inappropriate sexual contact or  fondling), or attempts to commit these acts. Sexual assault can occur  without regard to gender or spousal relationship or age of victim.  ‘Consent’ shall not be deemed or construed to mean the failure by the  victim to offer physical resistance. Consent is not given when a person  uses force, threat of force, coercion, or when a victim is asleep,  incapacitated, or unconscious.”
The Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness has the  responsibility for developing the overall policy and guidance for the  department’s sexual assault prevention and response program. Under the  Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness,  DOD’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (within the Office  of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Plans) serves as the  department’s single point of responsibility for sexual assault policy  matters. These include providing the military services with guidance,  training standards, and technical support; overseeing the department’s  collection and maintenance of data on reported sexual assaults involving  servicemembers; establishing mechanisms to measure the effectiveness of  the department’s sexual assault prevention and response program; and  preparing the department’s annual report to Congress.
In DOD, active duty servicemembers have two options for reporting a  sexual assault: (1) restricted, and (2) unrestricted. The restricted  reporting option permits a victim to confidentially disclose an alleged  sexual assault to select individuals and receive care without initiating a  criminal investigation. A restricted report may only be made to a Sexual  Assault Response Coordinator, victim advocate, or medical personnel.  Because conversations between servicemembers and chaplains are  generally privileged, a victim may also confidentially disclose an alleged  sexual assault to a chaplain. In contrast, the unrestricted reporting option  informs the chain of command of the alleged sexual assault and may  initiate an investigation by the military criminal investigative organization  of jurisdiction. Since December 2007, the Coast Guard has employed a  similar definition of sexual assault as well as similar options for reporting  a sexual assault in its guidance, Commandant Instruction 1754.10C.
At the installation level, the coordinators of the sexual assault prevention  and response programs are known as Sexual Assault Response  Coordinators in DOD and as Employee Assistance Program Coordinators  in the Coast Guard. Other responders include victim advocates, judge  advocates, medical and mental health providers, criminal investigative  personnel, law enforcement personnel, and chaplains.
section_title: DOD’s and the Coast Guard’s Programs to Prevent and Respond to Sexual Assault
paragraphs: DOD has taken positive steps to respond to congressional direction by  establishing policies and a program to prevent, respond to, and resolve  reported sexual assault incidents involving servicemembers, and the Coast  Guard, on its own initiative, has taken similar steps. Further, we found that  commanders are taking action against alleged sexual assault offenders.  However, we also found that several factors hinder implementation of the  programs, including (1) guidance that may not adequately address how to  implement DOD’s program in certain environments, (2) inconsistent  support for the programs, (3) limited effectiveness of some program  coordinators, (4) training that is not consistently effective, and (5) limited  access to mental health services.
subsections: section_title: DOD Has Taken Some Steps to Respond to Congressional Direction, and the Coast Guard on Its Own Initiative Has Made Similar Progress
paragraphs: In response to statutory requirements, DOD has established a program to  prevent, respond to, and resolve sexual assaults involving  servicemembers. DOD’s policy and implementing guidance for its program  are contained in DOD Directive 6495.01 and DOD Instruction 6495.02.  Specific steps that DOD has taken include    establishing a standardized departmentwide definition of sexual    establishing a confidential option to report sexual assault incidents,  known as restricted reporting;    establishing a Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office to serve  as the single point of accountability for sexual assault prevention and  response;  requiring the military services to develop and implement their own  policies and programs, based on DOD’s policy, to prevent, respond to,  and resolve sexual assault incidents;    establishing training requirements for all servicemembers on  preventing and responding to sexual assault; and   reporting data on sexual assault incidents to Congress annually.
Although not explicitly required by statute, the Coast Guard has had a  sexual assault prevention and response program in place since 1997. In  December 2007, the Coast Guard, on its own initiative, updated its  instruction to mirror DOD’s policy and to include a restricted option for  reporting sexual assaults.
In DOD, each of the military services has also established a Sexual Assault  Prevention and Response office with responsibility for overseeing and  managing sexual assault matters within that military service. The Coast  Guard’s Office of Work-Life, which falls under the Commandant of the  Coast Guard, is responsible for overseeing and managing sexual assault  matters within the Coast Guard.
section_title: Commanders Are Taking Action against Alleged Sexual Assault Offenders
paragraphs: A key aspect of the DOD’s and the Coast Guard’s efforts to address sexual  assault is the disposition of alleged sexual assault offenders. In both DOD  and the Coast Guard, commanders are responsible for discipline of  misconduct, including sexual assault, and they have a variety of judicial  and administrative options at their disposal. During the course of our  ongoing work, we found that commanders at the installations we visited  were supportive of the need to take action against alleged sexual assault  offenders and were generally familiar with the options available to them  for disposing of alleged sexual assault cases. Commanders’ options are  specified in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and the Manual  for Courts-Martial and include  trial by court-martial, the most severe disposition option, which can  lead to many different punishments including death, prison time, and  punitive separation from military service;    nonjudicial punishment, pursuant to Article 15 of the UCMJ, which  allows for a number of punishments including reducing a member’s  grade, seizing a portion of pay, and imposing restrictions on freedom;  and    administrative actions, which are corrective measures that may result  in a variety of actions including issuing a reprimand, extra military  instruction, or the administrative withholding of privileges.
In some cases, commanders may also elect to take no action, such as if  evidence of an offense is not sufficient. However, there are also instances  in which commanders cannot take action, such as if the alleged offender is  not subject to military law or could not be identified, if the alleged sexual  assault is unsubstantiated or unfounded, or if there is insufficient evidence  that an offense occurred.
In determining how to dispose of alleged sexual assault offenders,  commanders take into account a number of factors that are specified in  the Manual for Courts-Martial. Some of the factors that commanders take  into account include the character and military service of the accused, the  nature of and circumstances surrounding the offense and the extent of  harm caused, and the appropriateness of the authorized punishment to the  particular accused or offense. Further, commanders’ decisions are  typically made after consulting with the supporting legal office (e.g., judge  advocate).
section_title: Several Factors Hinder Implementation of DOD’s and the Coast Guard’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Programs
paragraphs: Despite taking positive steps to implement programs to prevent and  respond to reported sexual assault incidents involving servicemembers,  we identified several factors during the course of our ongoing work that, if  not addressed, could continue to hinder implementation of the programs.
DOD’s guidance may not adequately address some important issues.  DOD’s directive and instruction may not adequately address how to  implement the program when operating in deployed or joint environments.  Program officials we met with overseas told us that DOD’s policies do not  sufficiently take into account the realities of operating in a deployed  environment, in which unique living and social circumstances can  heighten the risks for sexual assault and program resources can be widely  dispersed, which can make responding to a sexual assault challenging.  Similarly, program officials told us there is a need for better coordination  of resources when a sexual assault occurs in a joint environment. At one  overseas installation we visited, Coast Guard members told us that they  were confused about which program they fell under—DOD’s or the Coast  Guard’s—and thus who they should report an alleged sexual assault to.  Installations can also have multiple responders responsible for responding  to an assault, potentially leading to further confusion.
While most commanders support the programs, some do not. DOD’s  instruction requires commanders and other leaders to advocate a strong  program and effectively implement DOD’s sexual assault prevention and  response policies. The Coast Guard’s instruction similarly requires that  commanders and other leaders ensure compliance with the Coast Guard’s  policies and procedures. Though we found that commanders—that is,  company and field grade officers, at the installations we visited have taken  actions to address incidents of sexual assault, some commanders do not  support the programs. For example, at three of the installations program  officials told us of meeting with resistance from commanders when  attempting to place, in barracks and work areas, posters or other materials  advertising the programs or the options for reporting a sexual assault. In  some cases, commanders we spoke with told us that they supported the  programs but did not like the restricted reporting option because they felt  it hindered their ability to protect members of the unit or discipline alleged  offenders. Commanders who do not support the programs effectively limit  servicemembers’ knowledge about the program and ability to exercise  their reporting options.
Program coordinators’ effectiveness can be hampered when program  management is a collateral duty. To implement sexual assault prevention  and response programs at military installations, DOD and the services rely  largely on Sexual Assault Response Coordinators, while the Coast Guard  relies on Employee Assistance Program Coordinators. However, we found  that there are a variety of models for staffing these positions. DOD’s  instruction leaves to the military services’ discretion whether these  positions are filled by military members, DOD civilian employees, or DOD  contractors, and thus whether Sexual Assault Response Coordinators  perform their roles as full-time or collateral duties. In the Coast Guard,  Employee Assistance Program Coordinators are full-time federal civilian  employees, but they are also responsible for simultaneously managing  multiple programs, including sexual assault prevention and response, for a  designated geographic region. We found that the time and resources  dedicated to implementing sexual assault prevention and response  programs varies, particularly when the program coordinators have  collateral duties.
Training is not consistently effective. Although DOD and the Coast Guard  require that all servicemembers receive periodic training on their  respective sexual assault prevention and response programs, our  nongeneralizeable survey, interviews, and discussions with  servicemembers and program officials revealed that a majority, but not all,  servicemembers are receiving the required training, and that some  servicemembers who have received it may not understand how to report a  sexual assault using the restricted reporting option. For example, a survey  we administered at 14 military installations revealed that while the  majority of servicemembers we surveyed had received the required  training, the percentage of servicemembers who responded that they  would not know how to report a sexual assault using the restricted  reporting option ranged from 13 to 43 percent for the seven installations  where we administered our survey in the United States and from 13 to 28  percent for the seven installations where we administered our survey  overseas. To date, neither DOD nor the Coast Guard has systematically  evaluated the effectiveness of the training provided. Servicemembers who  have not received the required training or are otherwise not familiar with  their respective programs incur the risks of not knowing how to mitigate  the possibility of being sexually assaulted or how to seek assistance if  needed, or risk reporting the assault in a way that limits their option to  maintain confidentiality while seeking treatment.
Access to mental health services may be limited. DOD and the Coast  Guard both require that sexual assault victims be made aware of available  mental health services, and in 2007, DOD’s Mental Health Task Force  recommended that DOD take action to address factors that may prevent  some servicemembers from seeking mental health care. However, we  found that several factors, including a DOD-reported shortage of mental  health care providers, the inherent logistical challenges of operating  overseas or in geographically remote locations in the United States or  overseas, and servicemembers’ perceptions of stigma associated with  mental health care can affect whether servicemembers who are victims of  sexual assault can or do access mental health services. We also did not  find any indication that either DOD or the Coast Guard are taking steps to  systematically assess factors that may impede servicemembers who are  victims of sexual assault from accessing mental health services.
section_title: Visibility over Reports of Sexual Assault
paragraphs: We found, based on responses to our nongeneralizeable survey and a 2006  DOD survey, the most recent available, that occurrences of sexual assault  may be exceeding the rates being reported, suggesting that DOD and the  Coast Guard have only limited visibility over the incidence of these  occurrences. We recognize that the precise number of sexual assaults  involving servicemembers is not possible to determine and that studies  suggest sexual assault are generally underreported in the United States.  Nevertheless, our findings indicate that some servicemembers may choose  not to report sexual assault incidents for a variety of reasons, including the  belief that nothing would be done or that reporting an incident would  negatively impact their careers.
In fiscal year 2007, DOD received 2,688 reports of alleged sexual assault  made with either the restricted or unrestricted reporting option involving  servicemembers as either the alleged offenders or victims. The Coast  Guard, which did not offer the restricted reporting option during fiscal  year 2007, received 72 reports of alleged sexual assault made using the  unrestricted reporting option during this same time period. At the 14  installations where we administered our survey, 103 servicemembers  indicated that they had been sexually assaulted within the preceding 12  months. Of these, 52 servicemembers indicated that they did not report the  sexual assault incident. The number who indicated they did not report the  sexual assault ranged from one to six servicemembers per installation.
Respondents to our survey also told us that they were aware of alleged  sexual assault incidents involving other servicemembers that were not  reported to program officials. DOD’s fiscal year 2007 annual report and a  Coast Guard program official further support the view that  servicemembers are not reporting all sexual assault incidents, as does the  Defense Manpower Data Center’s 2006 Gender Relations Survey of Active  Duty Members, administered between June and September 2006. Issued  in March 2008, the Defense Manpower Data Center survey found that of  the estimated 6.8 percent of women and 1.8 percent of men in DOD who  experienced unwanted sexual contact during the prior 12 months, the  majority (an estimated 79 percent of women and 78 percent of men) chose  not to report it. The Defense Manpower and Data Center report did not  include data for the Coast Guard, but, at our request, the center provided  information showing that an estimated 3 percent of female and 1 percent  of male Coast Guard respondents reported experiencing unwanted sexual  contact during the prior 12 months.
While the survey results suggest a disparity between the actual number of  sexual assault incidents and the number of those reported, this is largely  an expected result of anonymous surveys. Whereas formal reports,  whether restricted or unrestricted, involve some level of personal  identification and therefore a certain amount of risk on the part of the  victim, the risks and incentives for service members making anonymous  reports are very different. Hence, anonymous survey results tend to  produce higher numbers of reported incidents. Another factor obscuring  the visibility that DOD and Coast Guard officials can have over the  incidence of sexual assault is the fact that many of the individuals to  whom the assaults may be reported—including clergy and civilian victim  care organizations, civilian friends, or family—are not required to disclose  these incidents. As a result, while DOD and the Coast Guard strive to  capture an accurate picture of the incidence of sexual assault, their ability  is necessarily limited.
Our survey data revealed a number of reasons why respondents who  experienced a sexual assault during the preceding 12 months did not  report the incident. Commonly cited reasons by survey respondents at the  installations we visited included: (1) the belief that nothing would be done;  (2) fear of ostracism, harassment, or ridicule by peers; and (3) the belief  that their peers would gossip about the incident. Survey respondents also  commented that they would not report a sexual assault because of  concern about being disciplined for collateral misconduct, such as  drinking when not permitted to do so; not knowing to whom to make a  report; concern that a restricted report would not remain confidential; the  belief that an incident was not serious enough to report; or concern that  reporting an incident would negatively impact their career or unit morale.  The Defense Manpower Data Center’s 2006 Gender Relations Survey of  Active Duty Members identified similar reasons why servicemembers did  not report unwanted sexual contact, including concern that reporting an  incident could result in denial of promotions, assignment to jobs that are  not career enhancing, and professional and social retaliation.
However, servicemembers also reported favorable results after reporting  unwanted sexual contact to military authorities, including being offered  counseling and advocacy services, medical and forensic services, legal  services, and having action taken against alleged offenders. Respondents  to our survey indicated they were supportive of the restricted reporting  option as well. For example, a junior enlisted female observed that the  military is going to great lengths to improve the ways that sexual assault  can be reported and commented that “in my opinion, people will be more  likely to report an incident anonymously.” Similarly, a female senior  officer commented that “giving the victim a choice of making a restricted  or unrestricted report is a positive change and allows that person the level  of privacy they require.”
section_title: DOD and the Coast Guard’s Oversight over Reports of Sexual Assault
paragraphs: DOD and the Coast Guard have established some mechanisms for  overseeing reports of sexual assault involving servicemembers. However,  they lack the oversight framework necessary to evaluate the effectiveness  of their sexual assault prevention and response programs, and DOD lacks  key information from the military services needed to evaluate the  effectiveness of department’s program. DOD’s annual reports to Congress  may not effectively characterize incidents of sexual assault in the military  services because the department has not clearly articulated a consistent  methodology for reporting incidents and the means of presentation for  some of the data does not facilitate comparison. In addition, the  congressionally directed Defense Task Force on Sexual Assault in the  Military Services has yet to begin its review, although DOD considers its  work to be an important oversight element.
subsections: section_title: Oversight Mechanisms in DOD and the Coast Guard
paragraphs: DOD’s directive establishes the department’s oversight mechanisms for its  sexual assault prevention and response program and assigns oversight  responsibility to DOD’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office  (within the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Plans).  DOD’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office is responsible for    developing programs, policies, and training standards for the  prevention, reporting, response, and program accountability of sexual  assaults involving servicemembers;    developing strategic program guidance and joint planning objectives;   storing and maintaining sexual assault data;   establishing institutional evaluation, quality improvement, and  oversight mechanisms to periodically evaluate the effectiveness of the  department’s program;    assisting with identifying and managing trends; and   preparing the department’s annual report to Congress.
To help provide oversight of the department’s program, in 2006 DOD  established a Sexual Assault Advisory Council, which consists of  representatives from DOD’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response  Office, the military services, and the Coast Guard. The Sexual Assault  Advisory Council’s responsibilities include advising the Secretary of  Defense on the department’s sexual assault prevention and response  policies, coordinating and reviewing the department’s policies and  programs, and monitoring progress. The military services have also  established some oversight mechanisms, though these efforts are generally  focused on collecting data. Though Coast Guard representatives attend  meetings of DOD’s Sexual Assault Advisory Council, the Coast Guard has  few other formal oversight mechanisms in place to oversee its sexual  assault prevention and response program. According to program officials  with whom we spoke in both DOD and the Coast Guard, to date their  focus has been on program implementation, as opposed to program  evaluation.
section_title: DOD and the Coast Guard Do Not Have an Oversight Framework in Place to Evaluate the Effectiveness of their Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Programs
paragraphs: Though DOD and the Coast Guard have established some oversight  mechanisms, neither has established an oversight framework for their  respective sexual assault prevention and response programs, which is  necessary to ensure the effective implementation of their programs. Our  prior work has demonstrated the importance of outcome-oriented  performance measures to successful program oversight and shown that  having an effective plan for implementing initiatives and measuring  progress can help decision makers determine whether their initiatives are  achieving desired results. In reviewing DOD’s and the Coast Guard’s  programs, we found that neither has established an oversight framework  because they have not established a comprehensive plan that includes  such things as clear objectives, milestones, performance measures, and  criteria for measuring progress, nor established evaluative performance  measures with clearly defined data elements with which to analyze sexual  assault incident data. Because DOD’s and the Coast Guard’s sexual assault  prevention and response programs lack an oversight framework, their  respective programs, as currently implemented, do not provide decision  makers with the information they need to evaluate the effectiveness of the  programs or to determine the extent to which the programs are helping to  prevent sexual assault from occurring and to ensure that servicemembers  who are victims of sexual assault receive the care they need.
During the course of our ongoing work, we found a number of areas  demonstrating the need for an oversight framework. For example,  although DOD’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office is  responsible for establishing institutional program evaluation, quality  improvement, and oversight mechanisms to periodically evaluate the  effectiveness of the department’s programs, it has yet to establish  qualitative or quantitative metrics to facilitate program evaluation and  assess effectiveness. As a specific example, DOD has not yet established  metrics to determine the frequency with which victims were precluded  from making a confidential report using the restricted reporting option or  reasons that precluded them from doing so.
Additionally, we found that neither DOD nor the Coast Guard has  established performance goals, such as a goal to ensure that a specific  percentage of servicemembers within a unit have received required  training. In the absence of such measures, Sexual Assault Prevention and  Response Office officials in DOD told us that they currently determine the  effectiveness of DOD’s program based on how well the military services  are complying with program implementation requirements identified by  DOD.
Importantly, both DOD and the Coast Guard recognize the need to  establish an oversight framework in addition to their existing oversight  mechanisms. For example, the Sexual Assault Advisory Council is in the  initial stages of developing performance measures and evaluation criteria  to assess program performance and identify conditions needing attention.  However, DOD has not yet established time frames for developing and  implementing these measures. DOD also is working with the military  services to develop guidelines to permit, among other uses, consistent  assessment of program implementation during site visits. In addition,  Coast Guard program officials told us that they plan to conduct reviews of  their program for compliance and quality in the future and plan to leverage  any metrics developed by DOD to assess their program. Further, the Coast  Guard Investigative Service has begun to conduct limited trend analysis on  reported incidents, including the extent to which alcohol or drugs were  involved in alleged sexual assaults.
Without an oversight framework to guide program implementation, DOD  and the Coast Guard also risk not collecting all of the information needed  to provide insight into the effectiveness of their programs. In reviewing  DOD’s program, we found that the military services encountered  challenges providing requested data because the request to do so was  made after the start of the data collection period. For example, with the  exception of the Army, none of the military services was able to provide  data as part of the fiscal year 2007 annual report to Congress on sexual  assaults involving civilian victims, such as contractors and government  employees. Similarly, while there is no statutory reporting requirement,  the Coast Guard voluntarily participates in DOD’s annual reporting  requirement by submitting data to DOD’s Sexual Assault Prevention and  Response Office. However, DOD does not include these data in its annual  report, and the Coast Guard does not provide these incident data to  Congress because neither is required to do so. As a result, at the present  time Congress does not have visibility over the extent to which sexual  assaults involving Coast Guard members occur.
section_title: DOD Lacks Access to Data to Conduct Comprehensive Cross- Service Analysis over Time
paragraphs: Though DOD’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office is  responsible for assisting with identifying and managing trends, it is not  able to conduct comprehensive cross-service trend analysis of sexual  assault incidents because it lacks access to installation- or case-level data  that would facilitate such analyses. DOD officials told us that the military  services will not provide installation- or case-level incident data beyond  those that are aggregated at the military service level. These data are  generally limited to information needed to meet statutory requirements for  inclusion in the annual report to Congress. In discussing this matter with  the military services, service officials told us they do not want to provide  installation- or case-level data to DOD because they are concerned (1) the  data may be misinterpreted, (2) even nonidentifying data about the victim  may erode victim confidentiality, and (3) servicemembers may not report  sexual assaults if case-level data are shared beyond the service-level.  However, without access to such information, DOD does not have the  means to identify those factors, and thus to fully execute its oversight role,  including assessing trends over time. For example, without case-level data,  DOD cannot determine the frequency with which sexual assaults are  reported in each of the geographic combatant commands to better target  resources over time.
section_title: DOD Data Reported to Congress Could Be Misinterpreted
paragraphs: DOD reports data to Congress annually on the total number of restricted  and unrestricted reported incidents of sexual assault. However, in  reviewing DOD’s annual reports to Congress, we found that the reports  may not effectively characterize incidents of sexual assault in the military  services because the department has not clearly articulated a consistent  methodology for reporting incidents and the means of presentation for  some of the data does not facilitate comparison. For example, meaningful  comparisons of the data cannot be made because the respective offices  that provide the data to DOD measure incidents of sexual assault  differently. In the military services, Sexual Assault Response Coordinators,  who focus on victim care, report data on the number of sexual assault  incidents brought using the restricted reporting option based on the  number of victims involved. In contrast, the criminal investigative  organizations, which report data on the number of sexual assault incidents  brought using the unrestricted reporting option, report data on a per  “incident” basis, which may include multiple victims or alleged offenders.  We believe that this lack of a common means of presentation for reporting  purposes has prevented users of the reports from making meaningful  comparisons or drawing conclusions from the reported numbers.
Further, DOD’s annual report lacks certain data that we believe would  facilitate congressional oversight or understanding of victims’ use of the  reporting options. For example, while DOD’s annual report provides  Congress with the aggregated numbers of investigations during the prior  year for which commanders could not take action against alleged  offenders, those aggregated numbers do not distinguish cases in which  evidence was found to be insufficient to substantiate an alleged assault  versus the number of times a victim recanted an accusation or an alleged  offender died. Also, though DOD’s annual report documents the number of  reports that were initially brought using the restricted reporting option  and later changed to unrestricted, it includes these same figures in both  categories—that is, the total number of restricted reports and the total  number of unrestricted reports. An official in DOD’s Sexual Assault  Prevention and Response Office told us that because the military services  do not provide detailed case data to DOD that the department is not able  to remove these reports from the total number of restricted reports when  providing information in its annual report. However, we believe that the  double listing of these figures is confusing.
section_title: Congressionally Directed Defense Task Force on Sexual Assault in the Military Services Has Not Yet Begun Its Review
paragraphs: To provide further oversight of DOD’s sexual assault prevention and  response programs, the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization  Act for Fiscal Year 2005 required that the Defense Task Force on Sexual  Assault in the Military Services conduct an examination of matters relating  to sexual assault in cases in which members of the Armed Forces are  either victims or offenders. As part of its examination, the law directs the  task force to assess, among other things, DOD’s reporting procedures,  collection, tracking, and use of data on sexual assault by senior military  and civilian leaders, as well as DOD’s oversight of sexual assault  prevention and response programs. The law does not require an  assessment of the Coast Guard’s program. Senior officials within the  Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness  have stated that they plan to use the task force’s findings to evaluate the  effectiveness of DOD’s sexual assault prevention and response programs.  However, as of July 2008, this task force has yet to begin its review.
Senior task force staff members we spoke with attributed the delays to  challenges in appointing the task force members and member turnover. As  of July 2008, however, they told us that all 12 task force members were  appointed and that their goal is to hold their first open meeting, and thus  begin their evaluation, in August 2008. They also told us that they project  that by the end of fiscal year 2008 DOD will have expended about $15  million since 2005 to fund the task force’s operations—with much of this  funding going towards the task forces’ operational expenses, such as  salaries for the civilian staff members, contracts, travel, and rent. The law  directs that the task force submit its report to the Secretary of Defense  and the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force no later than 1 year  after beginning its examination. If such a goal were met, the task force’s  evaluation could be complete by August 2009. However, at this time it is  uncertain whether the task force will be able to meet this goal.
section_title: Concluding Observations
paragraphs: In closing, we believe that DOD and the Coast Guard have taken positive  steps to prevent, respond to, and resolve reported incidents of sexual  assault. However, a number of challenges—such as limited guidance for  implementing DOD’s policies in certain environments, some commanders’  limited support and limited resources for the programs, training that is not  consistently effective, limited access to mental health services, and a lack  of an oversight framework—could undermine the effectiveness of some of  their efforts. Left unchecked, these challenges could undermine DOD’s  and the Coast Guard’s efforts by eroding servicemembers’ confidence in  the programs, decreasing the likelihood that sexual assault victims will  turn to the programs for help when needed, or by limiting the ability of  DOD and the Coast Guard to judge the overall successes, challenges, and  lessons learned from their programs. We expect to make a number or  recommendations in our final report to improve implementation and  oversight of sexual assault prevention and response programs in both  DOD and the Coast Guard. Our final report will also include DOD’s and the  Coast Guard’s response to our findings and recommendations once they  have had an opportunity to further review our draft report.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, this concludes my  prepared statement. I would be happy to answer any questions you may  have at this time.
section_title: GAO Contact and Acknowledgments
paragraphs: If you have any questions on matters discussed in this testimony, please  contact Brenda S. Farrell at (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov. Key  contributors to this statement include Marilyn K. Wasleski (Assistant  Director), Joanna Chan, Pawnee A. Davis, K. Nicole Harms, Wesley A.  Johnson, Ronald La Due Lake, Stephen V. Marchesani, Amanda K. Miller,  and Cheryl A. Weissman.
This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the  United States. It may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety without further  permission from GAO. However, because this work may contain copyrighted images or  other material, permission from the copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to  reproduce this material separately.