Created in 1961, Peace Corps is mandated by statute to help meet developing countries’ needs for trained manpower while promoting mutual understanding between Americans and other peoples. Volunteers commit to 2-year assignments in host communities, where they work on projects such as teaching English, strengthening farmer cooperatives, or building sanitation systems. By developing relationships with members of the communities in which they live and work, volunteers contribute to greater intercultural understanding between Americans and host country nationals. Volunteers are expected to maintain a standard of living similar to that of their host community colleagues and co-workers. They are provided with stipends that are based on local living costs and housing similar to their hosts. Volunteers are not supplied with vehicles. Although the Peace Corps accepts older volunteers and has made a conscious effort to recruit minorities, the current volunteer population has a median age of 25 years and is 85 percent white. More than 60 percent of the volunteers are women. Volunteer health, safety, and security is Peace Corps’ highest priority, according to the agency. To address this commitment, the agency has adopted policies for monitoring and disseminating information on the security environments in which the agency operates, training volunteers, developing safe and secure volunteer housing and work sites, monitoring volunteers, and planning for emergencies such as evacuations. Headquarters is responsible for providing guidance, supervision, and oversight to ensure that agency policies are implemented effectively. Peace Corps relies heavily on country directors—the heads of agency posts in foreign capitals—to develop and implement practices that are appropriate for specific countries. Country directors, in turn, rely on program managers to develop and oversee volunteer programs. Volunteers are expected to follow agency policies and exercise some responsibility for their own safety and security. Peace Corps emphasizes community acceptance as the key to maintaining volunteer safety and security. The agency has found that volunteer safety is best ensured when volunteers are well integrated into their host communities and treated as extended family and contributors to development. Reported incidence rates of crime against volunteers have remained essentially unchanged since we completed our report in 2002. Reported incidence rates for most types of assaults have increased since Peace Corps began collecting data in 1990, but have stabilized in recent years. The reported incidence rate for major physical assaults has nearly doubled, averaging about 9 assaults per 1,000 volunteer years in 1991-1993 and averaging about 17 assaults in 1998-2000. Reported incidence rates for major assaults remained unchanged over the next 2 years. Reported incidence rates of major sexual assaults have decreased slightly, averaging about 10 per 1,000 female volunteer years in 1991-1993 and about 8 per 1,000 female volunteer years in 1998-2000. Reported incidence rates for major sexual assaults averaged about 9 per 1,000 female volunteer years in 2001 -2002. Peace Corps’ system for gathering and analyzing data on crime against volunteers has produced useful insights, but we reported in 2002 that steps could be taken to enhance the system. Peace Corps officials agreed that reported increases are difficult to interpret; the data could reflect actual increases in assaults, better efforts to ensure that agency staff report all assaults, and/or an increased willingness among volunteers to report incidents. The full extent of crime against volunteers, however, is unknown because of significant underreporting. Through its volunteer satisfaction surveys, Peace Corps is aware that a significant number of volunteers do not report incidents, thus reducing the agency’s ability to state crime rates with certainty. For example, according to the agency’s 1998 survey, volunteers did not report 60 percent of rapes and 20 percent of nonrape sexual assaults. Reasons cited for not reporting include embarrassment, fear of repercussions, confidentiality concerns, and a belief that Peace Corps could not help. In 2002, we observed that opportunities for additional analyses existed that could help Peace Corps develop better-informed intervention and prevention strategies. For example, our analysis showed that about a third of reported assaults after 1993 occurred from the fourth to the eighth month of service—shortly after volunteers completed training, arrived at sites, and began their jobs. We observed that this finding could be explored further and used to develop additional training. Since we issued our report, Peace Corps has taken steps to strengthen its efforts for gathering and analyzing crime data. The agency has hired an analyst responsible for maintaining the agency’s crime data collection system, analyzing the information collected, and publishing the results for the purpose of influencing volunteer safety and security policies. Since joining the agency a year ago, the analyst has focused on redesigning the agency’s incident reporting form to provide better information on victims, assailants, and incidents and preparing a new data management system that will ease access to and analysis of crime information. However, these new systems have not yet been put into operation. The analyst stated that the reporting protocol and data management system are to be introduced this summer, and responsibility for crime data collection and analysis will be transferred from the medical office to the safety and security office. According to the analyst, she has not yet performed any new data analyses because her focus to date has been on upgrading the system. We reported that Peace Corps’ headquarters had developed a safety and security framework but that the field’s implementation of this framework was uneven. The agency has taken steps to improve the field’s compliance with the framework, but recent Inspector General reports indicate that this has not been uniformly achieved. We previously reported that volunteers were generally satisfied with the agency’s training programs. However, some volunteers had housing that did not meet the agency’s standards, there was great variation in the frequency of staff contact with volunteers, and posts had emergency action plans with shortcomings. To increase the field’s compliance with the framework, in 2002, the agency hired a compliance officer at headquarters, increased the number of field- based safety and security officer positions, and created a safety and security position at each post. However, recent Inspector General reports continued to find significant shortcomings at some posts, including difficulties in developing safe and secure sites and preparing adequate emergency action plans. In 2002, we found that volunteers were generally satisfied with the safety training that the agency provided, but we found a number of instances of uneven performance in developing safe and secure housing. Posts have considerable latitude in the design of their safety training programs, but all provide volunteers with 3 months of preservice training that includes information on safety and security. Posts also provide periodic in-service training sessions that cover technical issues. Many of the volunteers we interviewed said that the safety training they received before they began service was useful and cited testimonials by current volunteers as one of the more valuable instructional methods. In both the 1998 and 1999 volunteer satisfaction surveys, over 90 percent of volunteers rated safety and security training as adequate or better; only about 5 percent said that the training was not effective. Some regional safety and security officer reports have found that improvements were needed in post training practices. The Inspector General has reported that volunteers at some posts said cross-cultural training and presentations by the U.S. embassy’s security officer did not prepare them adequately for safety-related challenges they faced during service. Some volunteers stated that Peace Corps did not fully prepare them for the racial and sexual harassment they experienced during their service. Some female volunteers at posts we visited stated that they would like to receive self-protection training. Peace Corps’ policies call for posts to ensure that housing is inspected and meets post safety and security criteria before the volunteers arrive to take up residence. Nonetheless, at each of the five posts we visited, we found instances of volunteers who began their service in housing that had not been inspected and had various shortcomings. For example, one volunteer spent her first 3 weeks at her site living in her counterpart’s office. She later found her own house; however, post staff had not inspected this house, even though she had lived in it for several months. Poorly defined work assignments and unsupportive counterparts may also increase volunteers’ risk by limiting their ability to build a support network in their host communities. At the posts we visited, we met volunteers whose counterparts had no plans for the volunteers when they arrived at their sites, and only after several months and much frustration did the volunteers find productive activities. We found variations in the frequency of staff contact with volunteers, although many of the volunteers at the posts we visited said they were satisfied with the frequency of staff visits to their sites, and a 1998 volunteer satisfaction survey reported that about two-thirds of volunteers said the frequency of visits was adequate or better. However, volunteers had mixed views about Peace Corps’ responsiveness to safety and security concerns and criminal incidents. The few volunteers we spoke with who said they were victims of assault expressed satisfaction with staff response when they reported the incidents. However, at four of the five posts we visited, some volunteers described instances in which staff were unsupportive when the volunteers reported safety concerns. For example, one volunteer said she informed Peace Corps several times that she needed a new housing arrangement because her doorman repeatedly locked her in or out of her dormitory. The volunteer said staff were unresponsive, and she had to find new housing without the Peace Corps’ assistance. In 2002, we reported that, while all posts had tested their emergency action plan, many of the plans had shortcomings, and tests of the plans varied in quality and comprehensiveness. Posts must be well prepared in case an evacuation becomes necessary. In fact, evacuating volunteers from posts is not an uncommon event. In the last two years Peace Corps has conducted six country evacuations involving nearly 600 volunteers. We also reported that many posts did not include all expected elements of a plan, such as maps demarcating volunteer assembly points and alternate transportation plans. In fact, none of the plans contained all of the dimensions listed in the agency’s Emergency Action Plan checklist, and many lacked key information. In addition, we found that in 2002 Peace Corps had not defined the criteria for a successful test of a post plan. Peace Corps has initiated a number of efforts to improve the field’s implementation of its safety and security framework, but Inspector General reports continued to find significant shortcomings at some posts.