The military justice system is governed by a collection of statutes and regulations, including the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is codified in Title 10 of the United States Code. According to the Manual for Courts-Martial, the purpose of military law is to promote justice, to assist in maintaining good order and discipline in the armed forces, to promote efficiency and effectiveness in the military establishment, and thereby to strengthen the national security of the United States. All members of the armed forces are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including the punitive articles that define specific offenses. The punitive articles include offenses similar to those found in civilian criminal law (e.g., murder, rape, wrongful use of controlled substances, larceny, and drunken driving) as well as other offenses that specifically affect good order and discipline in the military (e.g., absence without leave, disrespect toward superior commissioned officer, or dereliction of duty). When a servicemember is accused of an offense such as sexual assault, military criminal investigators, commanding officers, and military lawyers—known as judge advocates—have responsibilities related to the investigation and adjudication of the alleged criminal conduct. An investigation is usually conducted by one of the three military criminal investigative organizations—the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, or the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Each organization has criminal investigators who are responsible for interviewing witnesses, alleged victims, and suspects, and gathering physical evidence. These investigators present the results of the completed investigation to the commanding officer of an accused servicemember for disposition. Military commanding officers are responsible for good order and discipline in their commands, and they have a number of judicial and administrative options at their disposal. Commanding officers have access to judge advocates who may advise throughout the process of determining an appropriate disposition for an alleged offense, but ultimately, commanding officers are accountable for disposing of allegations of offenses in a timely manner and at the lowest appropriate level of disposition using one of the following options: No action: A commanding officer may decide to take no action. Administrative action: A commanding officer may elect to take administrative actions, which include corrective measures such as counseling, admonition, reprimand, exhortation, disapproval, criticism, censure, reproach, rebuke, extra military instruction, the administrative withholding of privileges, or any combination of the above. Nonjudicial punishment: Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice allows for a number of disciplinary actions, or “nonjudicial punishments,” that are more serious than corrective measures taken in an administrative action, but less serious than a trial by court-martial. Nonjudicial punishments include admonition, reprimand, reducing a member’s grade, forfeiture of pay, adding extra duty, and imposing restrictions on freedom. Court-martial: This option provides for the most severe punishments, including death, prison time, forfeiture of pay and allowances, reduction in rank, and punitive separation from military service. Commanders may choose from three types of courts-martial— summary, special, or general. While commanders have access to judge advocates who may advise them throughout the process of determining the appropriate disposition for an alleged offense, other judge advocates serve as trial and defense counsel in both special and general courts-martial. The military services’ guidance addressing investigative procedures along with the Uniform Code of Military Justice are generally applicable to criminal activity involving servicemembers. Further, each service provides sexual assault–specific guidance as well as standard operating and reporting procedures for responding to alleged sexual assault incidents. Guidance for each military criminal investigative organization specifically provides details on how sexual assault incidents should be investigated, and stipulates that investigative personnel must respond to all reported sexual assault complaints. DOD and military service policies and procedures for investigating and adjudicating alleged sexual assault incidents also apply to combat areas of interest. DOD Directive 6495.01 notes that it is DOD’s policy to provide an immediate, trained response capability for each report of sexual assault in all locations, including deployed locations, and it charges the secretaries of the military departments with programming appropriate resources to enable the combatant commands to achieve compliance with the policies set forth in the directive. Each military service also deploys investigators and conducts sexual assault criminal investigations in combat areas of interest and investigations in multiservice environments, and these investigations often cross service lines. Given the preponderance of Army personnel among servicemembers in theater, however, most sexual assault criminal investigations involving personnel from any service are initiated by the Army. Each military service also provides legal support in combat areas of interest, but the availability of judge advocates and the conduct of criminal justice proceedings in combat areas of interest vary, according to service component and operational needs. Service policies for military operations describe ways in which legal support is provided to the deployable force, sourced either through the deployment of personnel or by personnel situated at another location. The DOD Office of the Inspector General was established by the Department of Defense Authorization Act of 1983 to, among other things, serve as the principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense on matters relating to the prevention and detection of fraud, waste, and abuse, and to be an independent organization responsible for conducting and supervising audits and investigations of the programs and operations of the department. DOD Directive 5106.01 specifies that the DOD Inspector General shall establish policy and provide guidance on all DOD activities relating to criminal investigations and law enforcement programs, which include activities of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. The DOD Inspector General’s Office is divided into the following areas, each of which is headed by a deputy, assistant, or special inspector general: auditing; investigations; policy and oversight; intelligence; administration and management; communications and congressional liaison; general counsel; office of professional responsibility; special plans and operations; administrative investigations; and southwest Asia. Within OSD, 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 except for criminal investigative policy matters assigned to the DOD Inspector General. Under the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, OSD’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 most sexual assault policy matters. DOD guidance defines sexual assault, for purposes of specified guidance and sexual assault prevention and response awareness training and education, as intentional sexual contact, characterized by the use of force, threats, intimidation, or abuse of authority, or by situations in which the victim does not or cannot consent. Sexual assault includes rape, forcible sodomy (oral or anal sex), and other unwanted sexual contact that is aggravated, abusive, or wrongful (to include unwanted and inappropriate sexual contact), or attempts to commit these acts. The definition generally encompasses offenses classified under Articles 120 and 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The Secretary of Defense is required by law to implement a centralized, case-level database for the collection and maintenance of information regarding sexual assaults involving members of the armed forces, and to make that database available to the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. The law specifies that the database include information, if available, about the nature of the assault, the victim, the offender, and the outcome of any legal proceedings associated with the assault. In February 2010, we reported on and testified that although the office had taken preliminary steps to develop this database, it had not been implemented by the statutorily mandated deadline of January 2010. Further, we made a number of recommendations in our February 2010 report pertaining to DOD’s adherence to key system acquisition best practices when developing this database. DOD concurred with all of these recommendations. In March 2011, the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness provided Congress with a status report of the department’s efforts to implement the database. Specifically, the status report noted that a contract was awarded in August 2010 for the development, implementation, and maintenance of the database, and that the database was expected to be functional by August 2012. The report also highlighted the department’s adherence to key information technology management practices, and that its actions were consistent with the recommendations in our own February 2010 report. The DOD Inspector General’s Office has not carried out its responsibilities pursuant to DOD Instruction 6495.02, which was required by statute. The instruction directs that office to develop policy for the DOD criminal investigative organizations, to oversee sexual assault investigations, and to provide oversight over sexual assault training within the DOD investigative community. Specifically, the DOD Inspector General’s Office has developed some guidance on the general conduct of criminal investigations, but it has not developed a policy specifically for investigations of sexual assault incidents. Further, the DOD Inspector General’s Office is not monitoring or evaluating the services’ investigations of sexual assault and the related training of investigators. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 required the Secretary of Defense to develop a comprehensive policy for sexual assault prevention and response that addresses, among other things, command and law enforcement personnel’s investigation of such complaints. In response to this requirement, in June 2006, OSD’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office published DOD Instruction 6495.02, in which it specifies that the DOD Inspector General’s Office shall develop sexual assault–related policy for the services’ criminal investigative organizations. While the DOD Inspector General’s Office has developed some guidance on the general conduct of criminal investigations, it has not developed policy that specifically addresses sexual assault, as required by DOD’s instruction. For example, the DOD Inspector General’s Office has developed an instruction that outlines responsibilities and requirements for collecting DNA in criminal investigations and another that prescribes procedures for reporting offender criminal history data.