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United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

Report to Congressional Committees: 

September 2014: 

Military Personnel: 

DOD Needs to Take Further Actions to Prevent Sexual Assault during 
Initial Military Training: 

GAO-14-806: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-14-806, a report to congressional committees. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

In September 2012, following investigations for alleged sexual 
assaults during basic training, an Air Force Commander-directed report 
made 46 recommendations intended to better prevent sexual assaults 
during basic training. Congress mandated that GAO review the 
Air Force's efforts to implement the recommendations and lessons 
learned to better prevent and respond to sexual assault incidents 
among the services. 

This report examines the extent to which (1) the Air Force implemented 
the recommendations to better prevent, investigate, and respond to 
sexual assault during basic training and evaluated the effectiveness 
of actions taken and (2) the military services have a process to share 
lessons learned and have data to oversee their efforts to prevent 
sexual assault and related misconduct during initial military 
training. GAO analyzed the Commander's report, DOD policies, annual 
reports on efforts to improve the Air Force's program, and surveys, 
and met with officials. 

What GAO Found: 

The Air Force implemented most recommendations from the 2012 Commander'
s report intended to better prevent, investigate, and respond to 
sexual assaults and related misconduct during the Air Force's basic 
training for new enlisted personnel, but it has not evaluated the 
effectiveness of its actions. GAO found that as of July 2014, of the 
46 recommendations, the Air Force implemented 39, partially 
implemented 6, and did not implement 1. The Air Force established a 
council to provide senior leadership and oversight of actions taken in 
response to those recommendations. However, the Air Force has not 
fully established an oversight framework to evaluate the effectiveness 
of actions taken in response to the recommendations. Key practices for 
organizational change call for using a results-oriented framework to 
enable program oversight and for the framework to include performance 
goals. Without fully establishing an oversight framework for 
evaluating the effectiveness of its actions to prevent sexual assault 
during basic training, the Air Force will not know whether to sustain 
the efforts it has implemented or undertake different actions. 

Most military services share lessons learned through the Council on 
Recruit Basic Training (CORBT) and collect selected information to 
oversee their efforts, but do not have comprehensive, detailed data 
about sexual assault and related misconduct during initial military 
training, which includes basic and subsequent career training. CORBT 
was established in 2013 to address a variety of topics to improve 
basic training. Key practices for interagency collaboration include 
clearly defining roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in 
formalized guidance. However, the draft charter for CORBT does not 
identify the council's role as the forum for discussing sexual assault 
prevention for the entire range of initial military training. Further, 
it does not include key stakeholders who are critical to the success 
of sharing lessons learned on prevention of sexual assault and 
misconduct, such as the Marine Corps and service representatives 
responsible for sexual harassment. Without formalizing this role and 
involving key stakeholders, the Department of Defense (DOD) cannot 
ensure that the council is the most effective mechanism for sharing 
lessons learned for better prevention and response to sexual assault 
during initial military training. Also, three services have taken 
steps to obtain more comprehensive and detailed data that are specific 
to initial military training and provide better information about 
unreported misconduct for oversight, but these efforts vary by 
service. Further, none of the services have detailed data for both 
their basic and subsequent training environments. For example, the Air 
Force has a survey administered during basic training and the Navy has 
a survey given during subsequent career training. The Army has an 
annual survey but plans to develop a more comprehensive survey for 
basic training. The Marine Corps obtains information through 
leadership meetings with groups of recruits but does not have a 
formalized survey. Without developing or leveraging existing surveys 
about sexual assault and misconduct that can occur during initial 
military training, service officials may not have the comprehensive 
and detailed data needed to improve their sexual assault and sexual 
misconduct prevention programs. Further, military training leadership 
may have difficulty in determining the corrective actions that could 
best address remaining challenges in preventing sexual assault within 
initial military training. 

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO recommends, among other things, that the Air Force establish an 
oversight framework to evaluate the effectiveness of its actions, the 
military services formalize CORBT's role and include key stakeholders, 
and the services develop or leverage existing military training 
surveys to provide more comprehensive and detailed data. DOD concurred 
with the first three recommendations but partially concurred with the 
last, citing a need for more analysis. GAO continues to believe the 
recommendation is valid as discussed in this report. 

View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-806]. For more 
information, contact Brenda S. Farrell at (202) 512-3604 or 
farrellb@gao.gov. 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Background: 

The Air Force Has Implemented Most of the Commander's Report 
Recommendations but Has Not Evaluated the Effectiveness of Actions 
Taken: 

Opportunities Exist for the Military Services to Better Share Lessons 
Learned and Leverage Efforts to Obtain Comprehensive Data for 
Overseeing Sexual Assault during Initial Military Training: 

Conclusions: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology: 

Appendix II: Air Force Reviews of Sexual Assault and Misconduct during 
Initial Military Training: 

Appendix III: Recommendations Either Not Implemented or Partially 
Implemented from the Air Education and Training Command Commander's 
Report, Air Force Designation, and GAO Analysis of Implementation: 

Appendix IV: Potential Data Sources Identified by the Air Force: 

Appendix V: Comments from the Department of Defense: 

Appendix VI: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Related GAO Products: 

Tables: 

Table 1: Air Force and GAO Analysis of Status of Recommendations in 
the 2012 Commander's Report as of July 2014: 

Table 2: Age and Rank of Department of Defense Sexual Assault Victims 
and Offenders: 

Table 3: Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct Information Obtained by 
Military Service Initial Military Training Surveys: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: Basic Training Facilities by Service: 

Figure 2: Photos of a Military Training Instructor Office at Lackland 
Air Base Before and After Cutting of New Windows and Glass Door Panels: 

Abbreviations: 

AFOSI: Air Force Office of Special Investigations: 

CORBT: Council on Recruit Basic Training: 

DOD: Department of Defense: 

SFOI: Security Forces Operations, Investigations: 

[End of section] 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO:
441 G St. N.W. 
Washington, DC 20548: 
September 9, 2014: 

The Honorable Carl Levin: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable James M. Inhofe: 
Ranking Member: 
Committee on Armed Services: 
United States Senate: 

The Honorable Howard P. "Buck" McKeon: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Adam Smith: 
Ranking Member: 
Committee on Armed Services: 
House of Representatives: 

According to the Department of Defense (DOD), incidents of sexual 
assault represent a significant and persistent problem within the 
department and DOD has considerable interest in better preventing 
sexual assault and responding to assaults that occur.[Footnote 1] In 
DOD's fiscal year 2013 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the 
Military,[Footnote 2] the department reported that 5,061 alleged 
sexual assaults involving one or more servicemembers as either the 
alleged victim or the alleged suspect had been reported department-
wide during that fiscal year. However, DOD estimates that the majority 
of sexual assaults within the military still go unreported. Based on 
the results of a DOD 2012 survey of active duty servicemembers, DOD 
estimated that about 26,000 active duty servicemembers experienced 
some form of unwanted sexual contact in the year prior to the survey. 
[Footnote 3] 

While many sexual assaults may go unreported, numerous sexual assault 
investigations have received widespread media attention, often because 
of the rank or position of the accused. Several of these incidents 
involved sexual assault and other sexual misconduct committed by 
military training instructors at Air Force basic training.[Footnote 4] 
Since 2011, 34 military training instructors from the Air Force's 
basic military training program at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, 
have been investigated for alleged sexual assaults or other sexual 
misconduct, such as sexual harassment[Footnote 5] or unprofessional 
relationships[Footnote 6] with trainees. In June 2012, the Air 
Education and Training Command, responsible for Air Force initial 
military training,[Footnote 7] commissioned a Commander-directed 
investigation to evaluate the misconduct between instructors and 
recruits during basic training that occurred from October 2010 through 
June 2011. This report was to focus on incidences of sexual assault 
and sexual misconduct that were undetected and unreported for many 
months and to identify recommendations for corrective actions. The 
resulting report (the Commander's report) was issued in September 
2012, and contained 46 recommendations directed to the commander of 
the Air Education and Training Command to address weaknesses in the 
Air Force basic training environment and to better prevent sexual 
assaults and sexual misconduct.[Footnote 8] 

The issue of sexual assault and misconduct within initial military 
training is not unique to the Air Force. From a 2012 survey of active 
duty servicemembers, DOD estimated that of the 6.1 percent of women 
from across all the military services that reported having experienced 
unwanted sexual contact, 6 percent reported that the incident occurred 
during basic training and 19 percent reported that it occurred during 
subsequent career-specific training.[Footnote 9] Of the 1.2 percent of 
men across the services that reported experiencing unwanted sexual 
contact, 13 percent reported that the incident occurred during basic 
training and 22 percent reported that it occurred during subsequent 
career-specific training.[Footnote 10] 

We issued multiple reports from 2008 through 2013 that broadly 
reviewed DOD's sexual assault prevention and response program. For 
example, in August 2008, we found, among other matters, that (1) DOD's 
guidance did not adequately address some important issues, such as how 
to implement the sexual assault prevention and response program when 
operating in a deployed environment or in joint environments; (2) 
most, but not all, commanders supported the department's sexual 
assault prevention programs; (3) required sexual assault prevention 
and response training was not consistently effective; and (4) factors 
such as a DOD-reported shortage of mental health care providers 
affected whether servicemembers who are victims of sexual assault can 
or do access mental health services. We made nine recommendations to 
the Secretary of Defense to improve the oversight and implementation 
of DOD's program, such as to develop an oversight framework that 
should contain long-term goals, objectives, and milestones in addition 
to performance goals, strategies to be used to accomplish goals, and 
criteria for measuring progress; assess commanders' support of the 
sexual assault prevention program; review and revise guidance and 
training; review victims' access to mental health care; and evaluate 
appropriate staffing levels of certain sexual assault response-related 
positions. DOD concurred with our recommendations.[Footnote 11] 

Additionally, in February 2010, we reviewed DOD's progress in 
addressing our 2008 recommendations and found that the department's 
draft oversight framework lacked key elements needed for comprehensive 
oversight of DOD's programs, such as criteria for measuring progress 
and an indication of how it will use the information derived from such 
measurement to improve its programs. We made recommendations to help 
ensure that DOD was assessing the development of future programs to 
improve its overall response to sexual assault.[Footnote 12] DOD 
concurred with these recommendations and has since fully or partially 
addressed all of these recommended actions from our 2008 and 2010 
reports. Further, DOD has actions are under way to address those 
recommendations we have designated as partially addressed. For 
example, DOD officials stated that they are currently working to 
develop performance measures as recommended in 2008 and plans to 
report the outcomes. For a list of related reports, see the Related 
GAO Products page at the end of this report. 

Congress mandated that we review the status and effectiveness of 
recommendations the Air Force implemented from the Commander's 2012 
report to better prevent sexual assault during its basic military 
training and assess best practices by the military services for 
preventing sexual assault during this training.[Footnote 13] This 
report examines the extent to which (1) the Air Force implemented the 
recommendations in the Commander's 2012 report intended to better 
prevent, investigate, and respond to sexual assault during basic 
training, and evaluated the effectiveness of any actions taken, and 
(2) the military services have a process to share lessons learned and 
have the data to oversee their efforts to prevent sexual assault and 
misconduct during initial military training. 

To examine the extent to which the Air Force implemented the 
recommendations in the Commander's report and evaluated the 
effectiveness of any actions taken, we reviewed the 2012 Commander's 
report and related Air Force documents, including regulations, policy 
memorandums, and staffing reports. We also conducted interviews with 
command leadership, senior officials, and military training 
instructors at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland and Randolph Air Force 
Bases to discuss actions taken by the Air Force to implement the 
recommendations. Lackland Air Force Base is the only enlisted basic 
military training facility within the Air Force, and Randolph Air 
Force Base is the headquarters of the Air Education and Training 
Command. We also noted physical changes, while at Lackland Air Force 
Base, that had been made in response to the recommendations in the 
Commander's report. The Air Force provided its analysis of whether the 
implementation of each recommendation from the Commander's report was 
complete as of July 2014. We independently assessed the completeness 
of implementation for each of the 46 recommendations from the 
Commander's report. To determine our designation of completeness of 
implementation, using content analysis, we compared the documents and 
statements of officials detailing actions taken by the Air Force to 
the findings and recommendations outlined in the Commander's report. 
We categorized each of the recommendations as one of the following: 
(1) "implemented" if our analysis showed that the actions taken by the 
Air Force in response to the recommendations fully address the 
findings made in the Commander's report and fully institutionalized 
those actions into Air Force policies and procedures, (2) "partially 
implemented" if our analysis showed that additional actions are needed 
to fully address the finding and resulting recommendation in the 
Commander's report or if further steps are needed to ensure that the 
changes are fully institutionalized in Air Force policies and 
procedures, or (3) "not implemented" if the Air Force did not take 
identifiable steps to address the recommendation.[Footnote 14] We 
reviewed documents such as Air Force-provided reports and briefings 
and interviewed Air Force officials regarding its efforts to evaluate 
the impact of corrective actions it has taken. We compared its efforts 
against key management practices for organizations undergoing change 
or transformation identified in our prior work, such as involving 
senior leadership and developing a framework for oversight, including 
establishing performance goals and measures that would enable it to 
evaluate the effectiveness of its actions to better prevent and 
respond to sexual assault and misconduct.[Footnote 15] Further, we 
reviewed our body of work on effective performance measurement and 
reviewed the Air Force's efforts, if any, to provide oversight and use 
of performance measures to evaluate the effectiveness of its sexual 
assault and sexual misconduct prevention efforts in the basic training 
environment.[Footnote 16] 

To examine the extent to which the military services have a process to 
share lessons learned and have the data to oversee their efforts to 
prevent sexual assault and misconduct during initial military 
training, we reviewed the services' efforts to collaborate and share 
lessons learned and compared these efforts to best practices for 
effective collaboration.[Footnote 17] Further, we reviewed the 
policies and procedures in place within each service that are intended 
to prevent sexual assaults during initial military training and 
discussed any assessment of the impact of these efforts. In addition 
to Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, we visited 
three basic training locations to review policies and procedures in 
place, or in development, to better prevent sexual assault and 
misconduct. We visited the Army's Fort Jackson, South Carolina; Naval 
Station Great Lakes, Illinois; and Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris 
Island, South Carolina,[Footnote 18] in order to interview command 
leadership, sexual assault response coordinators, victim advocates, 
chaplains, judge advocates, and officials from military criminal 
investigative organizations. We also held meetings with basic training 
instructors and recruits to understand from their perspectives how 
policies and procedures are implemented and any remaining challenges 
in preventing sexual assault during basic training.[Footnote 19] We 
identified sources the department uses to track or monitor sexual 
assaults or obtain information about sexual misconduct during initial 
training through DOD's comprehensive instruction on preventing sexual 
assault and interviews with DOD officials. We reviewed DOD sources of 
data, such as annual strategic plans, as well as DOD's sexual assault 
prevention and response directives and instructions that identify 
roles and responsibilities regarding performance measurement for the 
department's sexual assault prevention and response program. We 
interviewed military service officials about service-specific efforts 
to obtain more comprehensive and detailed information about sexual 
assault and sexual misconduct that occur during initial military 
training and obtained service documents related to those efforts, such 
as surveys.[Footnote 20] Unless otherwise noted, we assessed the 
reliability of any data from fiscal years 2012 and 2013 used in the 
development of this report by reviewing related documentation and 
interviewing agency officials knowledgeable about the data.[Footnote 
21] 

Further details about our scope and methodology can be found in 
appendix I. We conducted this performance audit from August 2013 to 
September 2014 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. 

Background: 

Initial Military Training: 

Every enlisted military recruit begins his or her career in initial 
military training, which includes basic training and subsequent job or 
career-specific training. Basic training is the first introduction to 
the military for each of the services and includes instruction for new 
recruits on order and discipline, practices and procedures in their 
specific military services, and combat preparedness, as well as 
instruction to enable new recruits to meet service-specific fitness 
requirements. Each service maintains basic training facilities at 
select locations across the continental United States (see figure 1). 
Basic training is often referred to as basic or boot camp, depending 
on the service, and the majority of the training and oversight of 
recruits is carried out by senior enlisted servicemembers that are 
serving as instructors for a set period of time.[Footnote 22] 

Figure 1: Basic Training Facilities by Service: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated U.S. map] 

Air Force basic training site: 
Joint Base San Antonio – Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. 

Army basic training site: 
Fort Benning, Georgia; 
Fort Jackson, South Carolina; 
Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri; 
Fort Sill, Oklahoma. 

Marine Corps basic training site: 
Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina; 
Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, California. 

Navy basic training site: 
Recruit Training Command Great Lakes, Illinois. 

Source: Department of Defense; Map Resources (map). GAO-14-806. 

[End of figure] 

Recruits who successfully graduate from basic training then move on to 
subsequent career-specific training. The nature and duration of the 
career-specific training varies widely, from a few weeks to several 
months, depending on the requirements of the career. For example, Air 
Force recruits who successfully graduate from basic training then 
attend technical training, which is conducted primarily at five 
installations: Goodfellow, Lackland, and Sheppard Air Force Bases in 
Texas; Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi; and Vandenberg Air Force 
Base, California. Technical training instructors conduct training in 
specialties including aircraft maintenance, civil engineering, medical 
services, computer systems, security forces, air traffic control, 
personnel, comptroller, intelligence, firefighting, and space and 
missile operations. 

DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program: 

Various offices and organizations in DOD play a role in preventing and 
responding to sexual assault within the military. The Under Secretary 
of Defense for Personnel and Readiness is responsible 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 and legal 
processes in the UCMJ. The Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel 
and Readiness oversees the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response 
Office, which serves as the department's single point of authority, 
accountability, and oversight for its sexual assault prevention and 
response program. These responsibilities include providing the 
military services with guidance and technical support and facilitating 
the identification and resolution of issues; developing programs, 
policies, and training standards for the prevention of, reporting of, 
and response to sexual assault; developing strategic program guidance 
and joint planning objectives; overseeing the department's collection 
and maintenance of data on reported alleged 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 mandated annual report to Congress on 
sexual assaults involving servicemembers.[Footnote 23] 

Each military service has established a sexual assault prevention and 
response office with responsibility for overseeing and managing its 
sexual assault program. Further, DOD's directive requires the military 
services to establish sexual assault response coordinator positions 
and states that at the services' discretion, these positions may be 
staffed by members of the military or civilian employees.[Footnote 24] 
Sexual assault response coordinators are generally responsible for 
implementing their respective services' sexual assault prevention and 
response programs, including coordinating the response to and 
reporting of sexual assault incidents at an installation or within a 
geographic area. Other responders include victim advocates, judge 
advocates, medical and mental health providers, criminal investigative 
personnel, law enforcement personnel, and chaplains. 

DOD provides servicemembers and their dependents 18 years of age and 
older with two options for reporting an alleged sexual assault: 

(1) restricted and (2) unrestricted.[Footnote 25] DOD's restricted 
reporting option allows sexual assault victims to confidentially 
disclose an alleged sexual assault to sexual assault response 
coordinators, uniformed or civilian victim advocates, and health care 
personnel. Restricted reporting allows victims to receive medical 
treatment and counseling services without initiating an official 
investigation. In cases where a victim elects restricted reporting, 
first responders may not disclose confidential communications or 
information on the forensic examination to law enforcement or command 
authorities unless certain exceptions apply,[Footnote 26] and improper 
disclosure of confidential communications and medical information may 
result in discipline pursuant to the UCMJ or other adverse personnel 
or administrative actions. In contrast, DOD's unrestricted reporting 
option allows sexual assault victims to receive medical treatment and 
counseling services and request an official investigation of the 
allegation using existing reporting channels, such as their chain of 
command or law enforcement. 

Sexual Harassment: 

Sexual harassment can occur prior to an incident of unwanted sexual 
contact. For example, from the 2012 survey of active duty 
servicemembers, DOD estimated that of the 6.1 percent of women from 
across all the military services who reported having experienced 
unwanted sexual contact, approximately 44 percent of those respondents 
said that they were sexually harassed by the offender prior to the 
unwanted sexual contact.[Footnote 27] Of the 1.2 percent of men across 
the services who reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact, 
approximately 37 percent stated that they were sexually harassed by 
the offender prior to the unwanted sexual contact.[Footnote 28] 

Sexual harassment falls under DOD's military equal opportunity 
program, which is to prevent unlawful discrimination based on race, 
color, religion, sex, or national origin.[Footnote 29] The misconduct 
can include behavior on or off duty, 24 hours a day. According to a 
DOD directive, any person in a supervisory or command position who 
uses or condones any form of sexual behavior to control, influence, or 
affect the career, pay, or job of a military member or civilian 
employee is engaging in sexual harassment.[Footnote 30] Similarly, any 
servicemember or civilian employee who makes deliberate or repeated 
unwelcome verbal comments, gestures, or physical contact of a sexual 
nature in the workplace is also engaging in sexual harassment. The 
secretaries of the military departments are responsible for developing 
and implementing policies to prevent unlawful discrimination and 
sexual harassment, establishing both formal and informal means for 
resolving complaints, and ensuring compliance with DOD's policy. The 
chain of command is the primary and preferred channel for identifying 
and correcting discriminatory practices--including resolving 
servicemembers' complaints of sexual harassment. We have previously 
reported that by policy, the services encourage servicemembers to 
resolve any complaints of sexual harassment they may have at the 
lowest possible level first--for example, by confronting the harasser 
and telling him or her that the behavior is not appreciated, that it 
is not welcomed, and that it must stop. We reported on DOD's sexual 
harassment program in September 2011, and we found that DOD's program 
and policy could be improved and that DOD had limited visibility over 
the occurrence of sexual harassment. Further, we found that although 
DOD has established some oversight requirements, it has exercised 
little oversight of its policies and programs for addressing incidents 
of sexual harassment. Therefore, we made five recommendations 
addressing the department's sexual harassment prevention and oversight 
framework, and DOD concurred with all five of these recommendations 
and stated that a revision to the key directive would address our 
recommendations.[Footnote 31] As of July 2014, none of these 
recommendations had been fully implemented; however, DOD officials 
stated that the directive is currently under revision and that steps 
are being taken to address these recommendations. 

Air Force Reviews of Sexual Assault and Misconduct during Initial 
Military Training: 

In response to allegations of sexual assault and other sexual 
misconduct by Air Force military basic training instructors, the Air 
Force completed three reviews in order to uncover any weaknesses in 
the initial military training environment and factors that contributed 
to the delay in reporting of sexual assault allegations at Lackland 
Air Force Base. These are the (1) Commander's 2012 report on sexual 
misconduct at basic training, (2) a review of sexual misconduct at 
subsequent career-specific training (called technical training in the 
Air Force), and (3) a law enforcement review of delays in reporting 
allegations of sexual misconduct. See appendix II for a description of 
these reports and their methodologies. 

According to the Commander's 2012 report, a team, led by a major 
general in the Air Force, as part of that review interviewed different 
levels of command leadership, military training instructors and the 
supervisors of instructors, and faculty and students at technical 
training schools. Further, the team conducted focus groups with 
recruits at basic training and military training instructors and their 
spouses and provided anonymous questionnaires to over 6,000 recruits 
at basic training and to over 400 military training instructors. In 
total, the team surveyed 18,000 recruits, military training 
instructors, technical training instructors, and technical training 
students. Air Force officials stated that they did not interview 
identified victims involved with the ongoing investigations of 
military training instructor misconduct because they were concerned 
the victims may have felt revictimized by the additional questions. 
However, the team reviewed law enforcement investigative materials, 
including interview records and reports associated with individual 
cases, including victim interviews. The Commander's 2012 report 
focused on the basic training environment. However, the Air Force 
conducted a review focused on the technical training environment, 
which focused on 27 cases of alleged trainee-on-trainee sexual 
assaults. 

The Air Force Has Implemented Most of the Commander's Report 
Recommendations but Has Not Evaluated the Effectiveness of Actions 
Taken: 

The Air Force implemented most of the 46 recommendations from the 
Commander's 2012 report. Specifically, we found that 39 of the 46 
recommendations were implemented, but the Air Force analysis stated 
that it had implemented 42 of the 46 recommendations as of July 2014. 
However, the Air Force has not taken steps to fully develop a 
framework for oversight, including performance goals and measures, 
which would enable it to evaluate the effectiveness of its actions to 
better prevent and respond to sexual assault and misconduct. 

The Air Force Implemented Most of the Recommendations from the 
Commander's Report: 

Our analysis found that as of July 2014, the Air Force implemented 39 
of the 46 recommendations in the Commander's report, partially 
implemented another 6, and did not implement 1 recommendation. The Air 
Force's analysis of its implementation of the recommendations found 
that it had implemented 42 recommendations and partially implemented 
4. In some instances, we disagreed with the Air Force's designation of 
some recommendations as implemented. For example, the Air Force 
designated recommendations as implemented if it took some actions in 
response to those recommendations, while we designated recommendations 
as partially implemented if further steps are needed to ensure that 
the changes are fully institutionalized in formalized policy or 
procedures in order to be sustained beyond leadership changes. We did 
not evaluate whether these recommendations should be implemented, but 
assessed if the Air Force took actions that addressed the findings and 
resulting recommendations from the Commander's report. Table 1 shows 
the overall comparison of the Air Force's designation of 
recommendation status to our analysis. 

Table 1: Air Force and GAO Analysis of Status of Recommendations in 
the 2012 Commander's Report as of July 2014: 

Status of recommendation implementation: Implemented; 
Air Force analysis of recommendation implementation: 42; 
GAO analysis of recommendation implementation: 39. 

Status of recommendation implementation: Partially implemented; 
Air Force analysis of recommendation implementation: 4; 
GAO analysis of recommendation implementation: 6. 

Status of recommendation implementation: Not implemented; 
Air Force analysis of recommendation implementation: 0; 
GAO analysis of recommendation implementation: 1. 

Sources: GAO analysis and Air Force analysis of actions taken by the 
Air Force in response to recommendations. GAO-14-806. 

Note: We designated recommendations as partially implemented when 
analyses found that additional actions are needed to fully address a 
recommendation or that further steps are needed to ensure that the 
changes are institutionalized in Air Force processes and practices. 
For the purposes of this report, we define institutionalized changes 
as those that have a clear method for being sustained beyond 
leadership changes, such as through formalized policy and procedural 
changes. 

[End of table] 

The Air Force Implemented 39 of 46 Recommendations: 

We found that the Air Force implemented 39 of the 46 recommendations 
in the Commander's 2012 report, including some recommendations that 
addressed factors cited in the Commander's report as significantly 
contributing to an environment in which sexual assaults and other 
related misconduct could occur and go undetected. For example, the 
Commander's report found that having few midlevel officers led to a 
lack of oversight in the basic training environment and that the 
selection criteria for military training instructors did not 
effectively require appropriate rank and experience levels necessary 
for military training instructor duties. As a result, the Air Force 
implemented recommendations to increase leadership and oversight 
positions in its basic training structure and also upgraded its 
military training instructor requirements to at least the rank of 
technical sergeant (E-6) with 1 year of time in grade, as well as 
completion of Airman Leadership School.[Footnote 32] 

The Commander's report also found that the Air Force did not have 
specific criteria or time standards for reporting allegations of 
sexual assaults and related misconduct. As a result, the Air Force 
implemented actions to address recommendations that included issuing 
clear policies that require all sexual assault and sexual misconduct 
allegations to be reported to the commanders of the squadron, group, 
wing, and 2nd Air Force as well as to the judge advocates within 24 
hours of detection.[Footnote 33] Furthermore, the Commander's report 
found that substantiated misconduct was often dealt with using 
disciplinary tools less severe than warranted by the facts. The Air 
Force addressed a related recommendation by issuing an instruction 
that requires squadron commanders to immediately suspend a military 
training instructor from the training environment upon notification of 
allegations involving sexual assault and sexual misconduct, and, if 
allegations are substantiated, to remove the individual from 
instructor duty permanently.[Footnote 34] 

The Air Force Partially Implemented or Did Not Implement 7 of 46 
Recommendations: 

The Air Force provided information about the status of steps it was 
taking to address the recommendations. As of July 2014, we found that 
7 of the 46 recommendations were either partially implemented or not 
implemented. Specifically, we found that 6 of the 46 recommendations 
are partially implemented because our analysis showed that additional 
actions are needed to fully address each recommendation or that 
further steps are needed to ensure that the changes are 
institutionalized in Air Force processes and practices.[Footnote 35] 
Specifically, these 6 partially implemented recommendations are as 
follows: 

1. Eliminate weaknesses in existing detection measures by improving 
surveillance and entry control procedures. 

2. Increase staffing of military training instructors to fill all 528 
authorized positions. 

3. Shorten the instructors' tour length to a maximum of 3 years and do 
not allow them follow-on special duty assignments. 

4. Shorten the duration of basic military training from 8.5 weeks to 
7.5 weeks to eliminate "white space" in the basic training schedule. 

5. Ensure that candidates across all career fields are considered for 
the command of training squadrons. 

6. Ensure that training on how to report military training instructor 
misconduct reassures trainees that there will be no negative 
consequences for them if they allege sexual assault or related 
unacceptable behavior. 

We designated 4 of these recommendations (numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4) as 
partially implemented because changes were under way as of July 2014, 
but the Air Force had estimated completion dates for those actions. We 
therefore agreed with the Air Force that it is progressing toward 
implementing these 4 recommendations. For example, Air Force officials 
stated that the 2 recommendations (numbers 2 and 3 above) designated 
as partially completed related to the staffing of military training 
instructors will be phased in over time and that personnel adjustments 
are under way and will be completed by June 2015. In addition, in 
response to a recommendation we designated as partially implemented 
related to implementing security measures (number 1 above), Air Force 
officials stated that upgrading their security surveillance and 
monitoring equipment required a $2 million investment and as of July 
2014 the video camera systems attained full operational capability in 
three of their facilities and additional work will be conducted in 
fiscal year 2015 to expand this system to other basic training 
facilities. According to Air Force officials, the upgraded equipment 
is to provide improved security with better fidelity and longer 
storage periods of video monitoring. During our visit in November 
2013, we observed partial completion of other actions related to this 
recommendation, including doors to utility closets that were not 
removed, and military training instructors' offices in newly 
constructed recruit housing facilities not having windows cut into 
them, as shown in figure 2. In July 2014, Air Force officials stated 
that most of these changes had since been completed prior to trainees' 
occupying those spaces; however, the Air Force is constructing new 
recruit housing facilities through 2021, and these changes will need 
to be in all newly constructed facilities. 

Figure 2: Photos of a Military Training Instructor Office at Lackland 
Air Base Before and After Cutting of New Windows and Glass Door Panels: 

[Refer to PDF for image: 2 photographs] 

Before; 
After. 

Source: GAO. GAO-14-806. 

[End of figure] 

We designated the remaining 2 (numbers 5 and 6) recommendations 
mentioned above as partially implemented because the Air Force had 
taken steps to address the recommendations but additional actions 
would be necessary to ensure that the corrective actions are fully 
institutionalized in Air Force processes and practices through changes 
in policy or procedures. For example, in response to recommendation 5 
to ensure that candidates across all career fields are considered for 
the command of training squadrons, the Air Force requested commander 
selections for 2013 and 2015 rotations from a pool that consisted of 
all career fields. Therefore, the Air Force designated this 
recommendation as complete. However, Air Force officials do not know 
whether they will be given this priority of choice in commander 
selections in the future. As a result, the Air Force has not 
institutionalized this change, and we are designating this 
recommendation as partially completed. 

Additionally, of the 7 recommendations, we designated 1 recommendation 
as not implemented because the Air Force did not provide any evidence 
that it addressed the recommendation. Specifically, the Commander's 
2012 report recommended that the Air Force develop and 
institutionalize a more effective incentive program for military 
training instructor duty. For example, the Commander's report 
suggested that the Air Force consider incentives toward promotion 
similar to those in the Army and Navy. The Air Force stated that it 
preserved the top rate for special duty assignment pay for military 
training instructor duty in fiscal year 2014 while other special duty 
pays were eliminated or reduced because of fiscal constraints. 
However, the Air Force did not explain its rationale for not adding 
other incentives to this duty as recommended and made no identifiable 
changes; further, according to Air Force officials, the Air Force does 
not plan to add other incentives to this duty. Therefore, we 
designated this recommendation as not implemented. As discussed 
earlier, we did not evaluate whether these recommendations should be 
implemented, but assessed if the Air Force took actions that addressed 
the findings and resulting recommendations from the Commander's report. 

Appendix III includes a detailed discussion of each of the 7 
recommendations we assessed as partially implemented or not 
implemented. 

The Air Force Has Taken Some Steps to Provide Oversight of Efforts 
Intended to Better Prevent Sexual Assault during Basic Training, but 
It Has Not Fully Established Performance Goals and Measures to 
Evaluate the Effectiveness of Actions Taken: 

The Air Force has taken some steps for evaluating the effectiveness of 
the actions taken within its basic training resulting from the 
implementation of the Commander's 2012 report recommendations, such as 
by establishing a council to provide senior leadership and oversight. 
However, the Air Force has not taken steps to fully develop a 
framework for oversight, including performance goals and measures that 
would enable it to evaluate the effectiveness of its actions to better 
prevent and respond to sexual assault and misconduct. 

The Air Force Has Taken Steps to Provide Senior Leadership and 
Oversight of Actions to Better Prevent Sexual Assault during Basic 
Training: 

The Air Force has taken some steps for evaluating the effectiveness of 
the organizational change within its basic training resulting from the 
implementation of the Commander's 2012 report recommendations, which 
were intended to better prevent and respond to sexual assault and 
sexual misconduct during basic training. Top leadership involvement is 
a key practice for organizations undergoing change.[Footnote 36] 
Following the 2012 Commander's report, the Commander of Air Education 
and Training Command directed the establishment of the Recruiting, 
Education, and Training Oversight Council, comprising senior 
leadership and key stakeholders from across the Air Force's recruiting 
and training environments, to oversee improvement efforts by (1) 
reviewing the progress and effectiveness of previously implemented 
actions in response to the Commander's report; (2) providing an 
expanded perspective on future actions; and (3) advising the Commander 
on strategic issues affecting airman safety, good order, and 
discipline within the initial military environment. In February 2014, 
the Air Force formalized this oversight council with a charter, 
directing that the council meet at least once a quarter in order to 
monitor the health of the Air Force's recruiting, education, and 
training environments to ensure appropriate leadership and instructor 
behavior with respect to recruits, students, and trainees. The charter 
states that the oversight council is to fulfill a command-wide role by 
defining and implementing broad objectives to ensure the continuity, 
long-term oversight, and safeguarding of the recruiting, education, 
and training environments. The Commander of the Air Education and 
Training Command stated in November 2012 that one of the first steps 
of the oversight council is to develop a set of performance measures 
to evaluate actions taken to better address sexual assault and other 
misconduct.[Footnote 37] Further, the charter states that the council 
is to establish reliable and meaningful metrics and develop and 
implement strategies to ensure the long-term sustainment of corrective 
actions and improvements to the Air Force's recruiting, education, and 
training environments. 

In addition to establishing an oversight council, Air Force officials 
identified six potential data sources that they stated contain key 
information for tracking the status of implementation of the 
recommendations from the Commander's report. These include various 
surveys and databases of information such as disciplinary actions 
taken against military training instructors. For example, Air Force 
officials stated that in response to the Commander's report, the Air 
Force worked with the RAND Corporation to develop the Trainee Abuse 
and Misconduct Survey to help them evaluate the extent of sexual 
assault and other misconduct during basic training. The survey asks 
recruits if they experienced, witnessed, or heard about sexual assault 
or other misconduct (e.g., sexual harassment and unprofessional 
relationships) committed by either their military training instructors 
or other recruits. Additionally, the survey asks recruits about their 
comfort in reporting allegations of sexual assault or misconduct and 
their familiarity with different sexual assault resources, as well as 
why they would or would not report a sexual assault or other 
misconduct. See appendix IV for more detail about each of the six data 
sources. 

The Air Force Has Not Established Time Frames for Completing 
Performance Goals and Measures to Evaluate the Extent to Which Its 
Efforts Better Prevent Sexual Assault during Basic Training: 

While the Air Force has taken steps to address the recommendations 
from the Commander's 2012 report and focused largely on improving the 
basic training environment, it has not fully developed a framework for 
oversight that includes establishing performance goals and measures 
that would enable it to evaluate the effectiveness of its actions to 
better prevent and respond to sexual assault and misconduct. Key 
practices for organizational transformations call for using a results-
oriented framework to enable successful program oversight, and for 
such a framework to include establishing clear performance goals and 
measuring progress toward achieving those goals. Further, as part of 
that oversight framework, performance information is to be used to 
make decisions and communicate results.[Footnote 38] This involves 
identifying performance goals and measures early on, including 
establishing performance baselines by tracking performance over time, 
identifying targets for improving performance, and measuring progress 
against those targets.[Footnote 39] 

Air Force officials have also stated that oversight of Air Force 
actions taken is important to ensure that it is responding to new 
challenges over time. Nonetheless, although the Air Force has taken 
some initial steps, the Air Force has not established time frames for 
developing and implementing performance goals or measures to evaluate 
the effectiveness of its efforts. Key management practices for 
organizational change include setting goals and timeframes because 
change could take years to complete.[Footnote 40] 

Further, our prior work on internal control standards for the federal 
government has shown that agencies rely on timely information to carry 
out their responsibilities[Footnote 41]. Air Force officials stated 
that because baseline data did not exist prior to the sexual 
misconduct investigations at their basic training, they plan to set 
performance goals and use the results of the survey of basic training 
recruits to serve as a baseline for comparison, and to develop 
performance measures based on their identified potential data sources. 
However, during the 2 years since the Commander's report was issued, 
the Air Force has not established performance goals and measures for 
evaluating the effectiveness of the actions taken in response to the 
recommendations intended to better prevent, investigate, and respond 
to sexual assault in basic training. 

Although the Air Force tracks some information resulting from the 
various data sources we previously described, such as the number of 
allegations of sexual assault or misconduct, the Air Force has not 
identified time frames for completing the development of performance 
goals to be used for evaluating any improvements resulting from its 
efforts under way intended to better prevent and respond to sexual 
assault at basic training. Air Force officials stated that they would 
use data from the RAND recruit survey and other data sources to 
develop metrics for measuring the impact of actions taken in response 
to those recommendations. Data from the RAND recruit survey from the 
first quarter of fiscal year 2014 provided by the Air Force show that 
63 percent of recruits responded that they could meet with a sexual 
assault response coordinator without anyone in their flight knowing. 
Similarly, 43 percent of recruits responded that they could use a 
sexual assault hotline and 50 percent of respondents stated they could 
use the critique box without others knowing. According to the 
Commander's 2012 report, recruits stated that they feared potential 
backlash from military training instructors because of a lack of 
anonymity in using feedback mechanisms. Further, the RAND survey asks 
recruits to identify reasons why they did not report sexual assault 
and other misconduct, such as "I didn't think it was serious enough to 
report" or "I was afraid reporting might cause trouble for my flight," 
and Air Force officials stated that they track these responses. While 
trends in survey responses may be monitored by the Air Force from 
quarter to quarter, without completing the development of performance 
improvement goals, and implementing the use of those goals, such as 
reducing the number of responses to the survey giving specific reasons 
for not reporting, it may be difficult to determine if actions taken 
to increase confidence in reporting are achieving the desired effect. 

After the issuance of the 2012 report, the Commander of the Air 
Education and Training Command stated that one of the first tasks of 
the Air Force oversight council would be to establish a set of 
performance measures to help better understand the effectiveness of 
their actions and where adjustments can be made to improve performance 
and that effective metrics are a key component of a strong oversight 
process. Our prior work has found that an effective results-oriented 
framework for oversight uses performance measures to assess progress 
against performance goals. Further, our work has shown that high-
performing organizations use performance measures to determine if 
programs are achieving goals or if additional actions need to be 
taken, and that successful performance measures have key attributes 
that demonstrate results and provide useful information for decision 
making.[Footnote 42] Throughout our review, Air Force officials stated 
that they were in the early stages of developing performance measures 
to assess the improvements in leadership and institutional safeguards 
in training as a result of their actions to implement the 
recommendations from the Commander's report. Further, they stated that 
developing performance measures would be a focus after completing a 
majority of the actions recommended by the Commander's report. 
However, as of July 2014, the Air Force has not completed the 
development of these specific performance measures. Additionally, the 
Air Force has not identified an interim or expected completion date or 
timelines for completing its efforts to develop performance measures, 
but officials state that efforts are under way and that the 
Recruiting, Education, and Training Oversight Council will provide 
quarterly oversight of performance measures once they are fully 
developed. 

Although the Air Force has not fully developed and implemented 
performance goals and measures, Air Force officials maintain that 
their actions are achieving intended results to better prevent sexual 
assault incidents during basic training. When we asked Air Force 
officials to explain how they know their actions are achieving the 
intended results, they stated that their actions are achieving the 
desired results because there had not been a report of instructor 
sexual assault against a recruit since 2012. However, the two Air 
Force command-directed investigations that focused on basic training 
revealed that the series of sexual assaults and other incidents of 
misconduct that were uncovered were not initially reported by trainees 
to authorities, and were only uncovered by subsequent investigations 
by Air Force Office of Special Investigations and Security Forces 
Office of Investigations. 

Further, Air Force officials acknowledged that reports of instructor 
misconduct alone are not a sufficient indicator of success. For 
example, an Air Force official stated that the trainee survey showed 
that while instructors were restricted from sleeping quarters, more 
recruit-on-recruit misconduct was occurring and procedures were 
changed to include random patrols of sleeping quarters by a team of 
two instructors. As a result, the official stated that there may also 
be other unintended consequences. Further, an Air Force official said 
that because of the increased attention on the Air Force's basic 
training environment as a result of the sexual misconduct 
investigations, potential offenders may be less likely to commit 
misconduct but that the "spotlight effect" may decrease over time. For 
example, in the fiscal year 2012 DOD annual report on sexual assault, 
[Footnote 43] the Air Force reported on its implementation of 
recommendations from the Commander's report. DOD uses its annual 
report to communicate the important programs, initiatives, and policy 
improvements to the department's sexual assault prevention and 
response program developed and implemented during the prior fiscal 
year, including service-specific improvements detailed in service 
input to the overall report. However, the Air Force's input to the 
fiscal year 2013 DOD annual report[Footnote 44] did not include any 
information regarding the Air Force's efforts to better prevent and 
respond to sexual assault within basic training, and it did not 
discuss any evaluation of effectiveness resulting from actions taken 
in response to the Commander's report. Although the Air Force was not 
required to include such information, the absence of performance goals 
and measures, or information on any plans and time frames for 
completion of development of goals and measures, makes it difficult 
for Air Force leadership and external stakeholders to assess progress. 

Further, without establishing a framework for oversight to be used to 
evaluate the effectiveness of its actions intended to better prevent, 
investigate, and respond to sexual assault incidents during basic 
training, the Air Force will not know whether it needs to sustain the 
efforts it has implemented as a result of the recommendations from the 
Commander's report or undertake different corrective actions. Decision 
makers may be operating without performance information based on 
performance goals for improvement and measures that demonstrate 
results. Establishing time frames for completing the development and 
implementation of performance goals and measures will better position 
the Air Force to evaluate its actions taken in a timely manner and to 
know whether to sustain its efforts or undertake different corrective 
actions. Further, understanding and communicating the results of the 
actions taken by the Air Force may be difficult, both internally and 
to external stakeholders such as to DOD's senior leadership and 
Congress, without performance information over time. 

Opportunities Exist for the Military Services to Better Share Lessons 
Learned and Leverage Efforts to Obtain Comprehensive Data for 
Overseeing Sexual Assault during Initial Military Training: 

The military services' Council on Recruit Basic Training (CORBT) and 
DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office are some of the 
ways DOD shares lessons learned pertaining to sexual assaults that 
occur during initial military training, but areas of authority and 
roles and responsibility are not clear. Without defining areas of 
authority and roles and responsibilities, DOD and the services could 
miss opportunities to further improve their response and prevention of 
sexual assault and misconduct during initial military training. 
Furthermore, three of the services have ongoing efforts to obtain more 
data about sexual assault and sexual misconduct during some parts of 
initial military training, but none of the services have such efforts 
under way or plans to leverage each other's efforts to obtain more 
comprehensive and detailed data during both phases of initial 
training, basic and career specific. 

CORBT, DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, and the 
Military Services Share Lessons Learned: 

Services Share Lessons Learned for Preventing Sexual Assault in Basic 
Training, but Roles and Responsibilities for Sharing Lessons Learned 
in All Initial Military Training Are Not Clearly Defined: 

CORBT serves as a forum for senior military service leaders to discuss 
lessons learned related to sexual assault prevention during basic 
training. CORBT was formed in 2013 and comprises two bodies: a general 
officer executive board and a council composed of officers from the 
Army, Air Force, and Navy. The executive board is to meet once a year 
and the council is to meet quarterly to share lessons learned to 
improve how the services conduct basic training. We found that the 
council currently functions as a multiservice forum to share 
information and lessons learned specifically related to better 
preventing and responding to sexual assault at basic training. For 
example, the April 2013 CORBT meeting minutes state that 
representatives from the services discussed issues related to sexual 
assault and misconduct prevention as well as other areas of concern 
specific to basic training, such as physical fitness standards and 
recruit attrition rates. Specifically regarding sexual assault and 
misconduct prevention, the minutes show that representatives from the 
services discussed sexual assault prevention training and the Air 
Force representative provided updates on actions taken in response to 
the Commander's report. Further, according to the minutes, 
representatives discussed some policies and procedures that differed 
among the services that can have an impact on incidents of sexual 
assault and misconduct. For example, the representatives discussed 
instructor selection standards and the policies to review nonjudicial 
punishments in the records of instructor candidates. The Air Force 
representative stated that the Air Force will not accept a candidate 
with any record of punishment, an Army official stated that the Army 
screens the past 5 years, and a Navy official stated that the Navy 
screens the past 3 years. 

According to its current draft charter, members of CORBT include the 
defined co-chairs from the Departments of the Air Force, the Army, and 
the Navy, as well as the Coast Guard.[Footnote 45] However, as of July 
2014, the charter for the council has not been formalized and signed, 
and the current draft of the council's charter has some limitations, 
such as (1) the council's role as the forum for discussing sexual 
assault prevention within basic training, or possibly the entire range 
of initial military training, is not clearly defined and (2) key 
stakeholders related to sexual assault prevention and response are not 
clearly identified. Key practices for interagency collaboration 
include committed leadership and clearly defining roles and 
responsibilities when working across agency boundaries.[Footnote 46] 
As such, committed leadership by those involved in the collaborative 
effort, from all levels of the organization, is important to overcome 
the many barriers to working across agency boundaries, and involving 
stakeholders is also important in decision making. Additionally, 
agencies can strengthen their commitment to work collaboratively by 
articulating their agreements in formal documents, such as a 
memorandum of understanding, interagency guidance, or an interagency 
planning document, signed by senior officials in the respective 
agencies. The current draft of CORBT's charter generally describes the 
council's mission of sharing ideas and lessons learned among the 
military services to improve basic training and share lessons learned 
for preventing sexual assault at basic training. However, without 
clearly defining and formalizing CORBT's role as a forum for sharing 
sexual assault prevention, investigation, or response lessons learned 
from subsequent career-specific training as well as basic training, 
and including key stakeholders, DOD cannot ensure that the council 
addresses sexual assault and sexual misconduct prevention across 
initial military training and that lessons learned are appropriately 
and efficiently shared across the services. 

The original version of the CORBT charter from 2013 did not include 
any reference to the council's role regarding sharing lessons learned 
or discussing sexual assault prevention. The current version of the 
draft charter for the council was revised in July 2014 to state that 
the council will discuss the services' sexual assault programs; 
however, the charter has not been finalized to formally define the 
council's role in collaborating across the services in order to share 
lessons learned and better prevent sexual assault during basic 
training. As of July 2014, service officials stated that the charter 
would be signed and formalized within a few months, although a 
specific date of estimated completion was not available. An agenda 
from a January 2014 meeting of the council shows that participants 
discussed the possibility of using the forum to share lessons learned 
regarding sexual assault prevention at subsequent career-specific 
training. However, as of July 2014, the draft charter has not been 
revised to reflect this change and only some of the co-chairs from the 
military services are responsible for the entire range of initial 
military training--the Army and the Air Force co-chairs--while the 
Navy co-chair is responsible for only basic training within the Navy 
and not subsequent career-specific training. In addition, CORBT's 
draft charter does not clearly identify key stakeholders who should 
participate in the council. 

As discussed, agencies can strengthen their commitment to work 
collaboratively by involving key stakeholders in decision making and 
articulating their agreements in formal documents signed by senior 
officials in the respective agencies.[Footnote 47] Further, because 
organizational change can take several years, formalized policies and 
procedures are important to sustain efforts beyond leadership 
turnover.[Footnote 48] We found that not all key stakeholders to the 
issue of sexual assault and misconduct prevention participate in CORBT 
and there is not a formal membership list of all identified key 
stakeholders. For example, DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and 
Response Office serves as the department's single point of 
responsibility for DOD's sexual assault prevention and response 
program and related policy and the office has been represented at 
prior meetings of the council, but this office has not been identified 
as a stakeholder in the council's charter. In addition, although CORBT 
is a multiservice council, the Marine Corps is not identified in the 
current draft charter and it does not participate in CORBT 
discussions. Department of the Navy officials stated that the Marine 
Corps is represented as it is a part of the Department of the Navy. 
However, policies, procedures, and standards for basic training differ 
between the Navy and the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps participated 
at the creation of CORBT, but Marine Corps leadership made the 
decision to no longer participate. Further, the charter does not 
clarify how representatives responsible for certain aspects of sexual 
assault response are included in CORBT discussions, such as medical 
personnel or representatives who are responsible for investigations or 
adjudications, including the military criminal investigative offices 
and judge advocates. 

Additionally, while better preventing and responding to sexual assault 
is a focus within DOD, the department acknowledges that sexual 
harassment is likewise a significant and persistent problem and this 
type of misconduct can precede sexual assault. As sexual harassment is 
a form of discrimination, preventing and responding to sexual 
harassment is not a part of DOD's sexual assault prevention and 
response program but instead a part of DOD's military equal 
opportunity program, as noted earlier. The Under Secretary of Defense 
for Personnel and Readiness has responsibility for developing the 
overall policy for DOD's military equal opportunity program and 
monitoring compliance with the department's policy and has delegated 
these responsibilities to its Office of Diversity Management and Equal 
Opportunity. Representatives from the Office of the Secretary of 
Defense or service equal opportunity offices have not participated in 
CORBT meetings and are not identified as key stakeholders in the 
council.[Footnote 49] 

As evidenced by DOD's data from its 2012 survey, sexual assault is a 
concern across all of initial military training, not only basic 
training, as are other forms of sexual misconduct such as sexual 
harassment. The role of the council has evolved over time as evidenced 
through revisions to its draft charter to include additional 
participants and to include a focus on sharing lessons learned for 
sexual assault prevention and response specifically within basic 
training. However, as of July 2014, the draft charter does not discuss 
the council's role regarding sexual assault and other misconduct 
prevention across all of initial military training or identify key 
stakeholders who are important for addressing these issues. A senior 
DOD official stated that it would be beneficial for all of the 
military services to participate and that CORBT would be an 
appropriate forum for discussing lessons learned for all of initial 
military training. However, as of July 2014, service officials stated 
that they did not plan to revise the draft charter to define the 
council's role for sharing lessons learned for subsequent career-
specific training or identify additional key stakeholders in the 
charter. Without a formalized and final charter that clearly 
identifies CORBT's role regarding initial military training and 
clearly identifies key stakeholders who should participate, DOD cannot 
ensure that the council is the most effective collaborative effort for 
sharing lessons learned and key practices for better prevention and 
response to sexual assault during initial military training. 

DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office and the Services 
Have Identified Lessons Learned to Prevent and Respond to Sexual 
Assault but Have Not Developed a Method to Determine and Share Best 
Practices: 

DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office and the military 
services identified a number of lessons learned and promising 
practices for sexual assault prevention and response during the course 
of this review. Lessons learned provide a powerful method of sharing 
good ideas for improving work processes, quality, and cost-
effectiveness, and there are key practices that can be used to 
identify and apply lessons learned, such as collecting and analyzing 
information to identify lessons that lead to recommendations and 
sharing and disseminating these lessons.[Footnote 50] Officials from 
DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office provided a list of 
service-specific efforts that they considered to be "promising 
practices," including peer mentoring programs among Navy enlisted 
personnel and the Air Force-developed special victims' counsel, a 
legal counsel that provides legal advice and representation to victims 
throughout the military justice process, which was established in each 
of the services by January 2014. DOD officials stated that a promising 
practice is an identified practice that has worked within at least one 
organization and shows promise during its early stages for becoming a 
best practice with long-term sustainable impact. They stated that they 
define a "best practice" as a research-validated or field-tested 
method or technique that has consistently shown results superior to 
those achieved with other means. Further, they stated that it was a 
goal to formalize a process within DOD to identify and assess best and 
promising practices for sexual assault prevention and response by 
October 2013, but that obtaining the data to support this process was 
a challenge. As of July 2014, this process has not been completed, 
although DOD officials stated that this was still a priority. 

Service officials from headquarters-level sexual assault prevention 
and response offices and command leadership at the initial military 
training locations we visited identified service-specific promising 
practices. For example, service officials provided examples such as 
peer mentoring programs for enlisted personnel; physical security 
initiatives, such as alarm systems and guard procedures; and 
publishing or posting lists of sexual misconduct offenses and 
resulting punishments, with no identifiable personal information, in 
order to deter sexual misconduct. When we asked service officials to 
describe how they knew these policies or procedures were achieving the 
intended impact of better preventing or responding to sexual assault, 
officials stated that obtaining data and developing performance 
measures to show progress are challenging, however, many noted that 
these steps are a focus. For example, the services track and measure 
the number of reported sexual assaults, but officials stated that this 
measure alone is not a sufficient indicator of progress, as an 
increase in reports may reflect more comfort and trust in the 
reporting process than an actual increase in sexual assault incidents. 
Each military department was required by the Secretary of Defense to 
carry out a review of its initial military training environments and 
report on efforts regarding prevention and reporting of sexual assault 
and other misconduct,[Footnote 51] and these resulting reports are 
discussed in DOD's fiscal year 2013 annual report on sexual assault 
within the military. In these service reviews of initial military 
training, service officials identified what they believe to be key 
practices or lessons learned for combating sexual assault and 
misconduct overall, such as dedicated and involved leadership, sexual 
assault prevention training, and the core values of the services. 
However, these service assessments did not include performance 
information, such as measures, demonstrating the impact of these 
identified key practices or lessons learned. 

We found that the services have varying policies and procedures in 
place intended to reduce opportunities for sexual assault incidents, 
and they could be assessed for whether to share with the other 
services, as another key practice for lessons learned is to validate 
the accuracy and applicability of lessons to apply them to other 
programs or projects.[Footnote 52] For example, the Air Force, the 
Army, and the Navy prohibit recruits from being alone with any 
instructor for any reason, while the Marine Corps allows instructors 
to be alone with recruits of the same gender. The Marine Corps 
segregates female and male recruits during basic training and the 
training instructors are the same gender as the recruits. However, 
this policy does not preclude opportunities for same-sex sexual 
assault. Further, commanders of career-specific training sometimes 
limit the liberties of students regarding overnight privileges and 
alcohol use, and the Army prohibits alcohol use during initial 
military training entirely. 

Opportunities Exist for Services to Leverage Ongoing Efforts to 
Collect More Comprehensive and Detailed Information about Sexual 
Assault and Misconduct during Initial Military Training: 

DOD has some extensive data sources related to reported sexual 
assaults and survey data related to unwanted sexual contact. However, 
none of the data sources provide the services with the types of data 
needed to oversee their efforts to prevent sexual assault and related 
misconduct during initial military training, such as better 
information about unreported sexual assaults and data about sexual 
misconduct, including sexual harassment or unprofessional 
relationships. As a result, three of the services have taken steps to 
obtain more comprehensive, detailed data, but these efforts vary by 
service regarding the comprehensiveness and level of detail of the 
data obtained, and none of the military services have surveys that 
provide comprehensive and detailed information on both the basic and 
career-specific training environments or plans to leverage each 
other's surveys. Standards for internal controls in the federal 
government require that an agency must have relevant, reliable 
information, both financial and nonfinancial, relating to external as 
well as internal events, and that information should be recorded and 
communicated.[Footnote 53] 

DOD has recently developed a database that is intended to serve as the 
single system of record of reported sexual assault cases across the 
department, and has administered surveys to gather more information 
about the incidence of sexual assault and sexual harassment. However, 
DOD does not have a data source that provides more comprehensive and 
detailed information about sexual assaults and other misconduct, such 
as sexual harassment and unprofessional relationships that can occur 
specifically during initial training, especially information about 
sexual assaults and misconduct that goes unreported to authorities. 
DOD reports that sexual assault is an underreported crime, as shown by 
the higher incidence of anonymous survey responses DOD received as 
compared to reported sexual assaults, which contributes to the 
difficulty of obtaining such data. The following are sources of data 
DOD has to obtain information about the reporting of and prevalence of 
sexual assault and misconduct and the command climate surrounding 
sexual assault. 

* Defense Sexual Assault Incident Database: This database was 
designated by the department as the system of record for sexual 
assault restricted and unrestricted incident information in 2014, but 
was not designed to contain any information about sexual harassment or 
unprofessional relationships. 

* DOD's Workplace and Gender Relations Survey of Active Duty Members: 
This survey is designed to assess the prevalence of unwanted sexual 
contact and sexual harassment in the active duty military. There are 
questions in the survey that ask respondents to identify if they 
experienced an incidence of unwanted sexual contact while in basic 
training or other training environments. For example, as previously 
discussed, this survey estimated that of the 6.1 percent of women from 
across all the military services who reported experiencing unwanted 
sexual contact, 6 percent reported that the incident occurred during 
enlisted basic training and 19 percent reported it occurred during 
subsequent training.[Footnote 54] However, Defense Manpower and Data 
Center officials responsible for this survey stated that it does not 
allow DOD to accurately determine more detailed estimates for 
incidents that occurred while in basic training or other training 
environments, such as whether the assault was committed by a superior 
or peer or why the assault was not reported to authorities. 

* DOD's Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute's 
Organizational Climate Survey: The survey is designed to help 
commanders assess critical organizational climate dimensions that can 
affect mission, including sexual harassment and sexual assault. 
However, DOD officials stated that recruits are not a part of the 
population that is surveyed and there are no questions regarding a 
servicemember's experience during basic training. Also, not all 
trainees in subsequent career-specific training are included because 
the survey is administered annually and the duration of training 
varies from a few weeks to many months depending on the training. 
Congress recently mandated that command climate assessments regarding 
sexual assaults be conducted within 120 days of when a new commander 
assumes command and at least annually thereafter and that the results 
of these climate assessments be tracked and verified by the service 
secretaries.[Footnote 55] 

Each of these data sources has limitations in providing detailed 
sexual assault and sexual misconduct information specific to initial 
military training. However, initial military training is comprised of 
young men and women of junior enlisted ranks, and DOD has some data to 
suggest that initial military training is an important area of concern 
for DOD related to sexual assault, as shown in table 2. 

Table 2: Age and Rank of Department of Defense Sexual Assault Victims 
and Offenders: 

Victim aged 16 to 24 years; 
Percentage of completed unrestricted investigations for fiscal year 
2012: 69%; 
Percentage of completed unrestricted investigations for fiscal year 
2013: 65%. 

Victim rank E1 through E4; 
Percentage of completed unrestricted investigations for fiscal year 
2012: 73%; 
Percentage of completed unrestricted investigations for fiscal year 
2013: 63%. 

Offender aged 16 to 24 years; 
Percentage of completed unrestricted investigations for fiscal year 
2012: 41%; 
Percentage of completed unrestricted investigations for fiscal year 
2013: 41%. 

Offender rank E1 through E4; 
Percentage of completed unrestricted investigations for fiscal year 
2012: 51%; 
Percentage of completed unrestricted investigations for fiscal year 
2013: 47%. 

Source: GAO analysis of Department of Defense data. GAO-14-806. 

Note: E1 through E4 are junior enlisted pay grades that correspond 
with military rank and typically years of service. For example, 
servicemembers in pay grades E-1 through E-3 are usually either in 
some kind of training status or on their initial assignment. 

[End of table] 

Initial military training is comprised of enlisted personnel primarily 
of these ranges of age and enlisted ranks.[Footnote 56] Further, 
several military service officials stated that there are indications 
that initial military training, as well as first duty station 
assignments, are areas of concern regarding sexual assaults because of 
the vulnerability of these populations to sexual assault and other 
related misconduct over some other populations within the military, 
although DOD has noted that sexual assault and related misconduct 
occur across the entire range of the military, even if not at the same 
frequency. 

DOD's data sources have limitations in their ability to provide more 
comprehensive and detailed sexual assault and sexual misconduct 
information that is specific to initial military training. As a 
result, the military services have taken steps on their own initiative 
to obtain more information about sexual assaults and incidences of 
sexual misconduct that occur during initial military training, 
especially those that go unreported to authorities. The following 
lists the service-initiated efforts to obtain more information about 
sexual assault and sexual misconduct during initial military training; 
however, the level of detail and comprehensiveness, as well as the 
anonymity, of the information obtained varies both by service and also 
within a service regarding the information obtained from those in 
basic training and subsequent career-specific training. Specifically, 
the Navy's survey regarding sexual assault and misconduct during 
career-specific training is comprehensive and detailed, while the Air 
Force has a comprehensive and detailed survey of its basic training 
recruits. The Army is hoping to develop a more comprehensive survey 
for the basic training environment, while the Marine Corps does not 
have such plans. None of the military services have detailed survey 
data to help provide data or information on both the basic and career-
specific training environments or plans to leverage each other's 
surveys. 

* Air Force: As previously discussed, as part of its response to the 
Commander's 2012 report, the Air Force worked with the RAND 
Corporation to develop and administer an anonymous survey of its basic 
training recruit population in fiscal year 2014. The survey instrument 
describes its purpose as a means to provide all recruits a 
confidential way to report to leadership any incidents of bullying, 
maltreatment, maltraining, unprofessional relationships, or unwanted 
sexual experiences that occur during basic training. Data from the 
survey responses are provided to leadership so leaders can understand 
and address problems within basic training. Questions in the survey 
address sexual misconduct between recruits, sexual assault or sexual 
misconduct committed by instructors, whether the sexual assault or 
sexual misconduct was reported, reasons why a recruit did not report 
sexual assault or sexual misconduct, and perceptions of how leadership 
would respond to and address sexual assault or sexual misconduct. 
However, Air Force officials stated that it is waiting to review a 
pilot period of data from the survey before deciding whether to 
continue this effort. Further, the Air Force does not administer this 
survey to trainees during subsequent career-specific training. The Air 
Force stated that it is exploring expanding the survey to its 
subsequent career-specific training. 

* Navy: The Navy developed a voluntary, anonymous survey of subsequent 
career-specific training students. While this survey was piloted at 
four training locations, Navy officials stated in July 2014 that this 
effort has been expanded to every subsequent career-specific training 
location, or A school, within the Department of the Navy. The survey 
is to collect data to evaluate a command's personnel policies, 
procedures, and programs and data resulting from the survey are 
provided to commanders to help them make data-driven decisions aimed 
at preventing sexual assaults. Questions in the survey address 
unprofessional contact with instructors, perceptions of how leadership 
would respond to sexual assault, any experience of sexual assault or 
sexual misconduct, reporting of those incidences, reasons for not 
reporting, and rank and relationship to offender. Further, if the 
respondent did report the incident to authorities, questions obtain 
data concerning satisfaction with services received and any experience 
with retaliation. Navy officials stated that data from the survey can 
be compared against reported incidents as a means to better understand 
the incidence of unreported sexual assaults and climate factors that 
can affect reporting. 

The Navy also collects information about sexual misconduct from the 
basic training environment. Recruits take computer-based tests at 
certain points during basic training, and after those tests, they are 
provided with voluntary critique forms that ask some questions related 
to sexual assault and sexual misconduct experienced or witnessed 
during basic training. This survey is not anonymous, as recruits must 
use their identification cards in order to access the computer-based 
system. Further, the questions do not contain the same level of detail 
and specificity as the survey that the Navy provides to subsequent 
career-specific training students. For example, the basic training 
survey asks respondents if they have experienced or witnessed sexual 
misconduct by basic training staff or recruits, whereas the survey of 
subsequent career-specific training students asks whether misconduct 
was committed by instructors, staff, and other recruits in separate, 
detailed response options. Further, the survey of basic training 
recruits does not ask questions about the outcome of reporting. While 
the implementation of the recruit surveys to assess instructor and 
staff conduct is institutionalized in a Navy instruction, the 
instruction does not require that the survey ask questions 
specifically regarding sexual assault and sexual misconduct.[Footnote 
57] 

* Army: The Army conducts an anonymous annual survey of soldiers who 
have graduated from basic or subsequent career-specific training 
during the past year. While numerous aspects of the training culture 
are addressed in the survey, there are general questions within the 
survey regarding sexual assault and sexual harassment during initial 
military training, and there are several questions regarding the 
sexual assault prevention and response training received during basic 
or subsequent career-specific training. There are no questions 
regarding unprofessional relationships between instructors and 
recruits. An Army official stated that the Army plans to develop a 
centralized survey that would be provided to every recruit at the 
completion of basic training in order to obtain more detailed and 
current information about sexual assault and sexual misconduct that 
occurs specifically within basic training; however, there is not a 
time frame for completion as the official stated that implementation 
depends on funding availability. 

* Marine Corps: Officials from the Marine Corps stated that they have 
taken some steps to obtain information from recruits about sexual 
assault and sexual misconduct, such as through leadership meeting with 
groups of recruits or brief feedback forms, but the information is 
limited because the Marine Corps does not use an anonymous and 
formalized survey of recruits and trainees to obtain more 
comprehensive and detailed information about sexual assault and 
misconduct that might occur during initial military training but go 
unreported to authorities and reasons for not reporting, and did not 
identify plans to do so. 

Even though the services' efforts to develop surveys to obtain better 
information about sexual assault and sexual misconduct within initial 
military training were independent, we found that the data elements 
obtained from surveys used by the services are largely consistent 
across these various surveys. For example, surveys used by the Air 
Force at basic training and the Navy at their subsequent career-
specific training ask similar questions to obtain the same type of 
detailed information, such as the type of misconduct recruits or 
trainees experienced, whether they reported the misconduct, and 
reasons why they did not report the misconduct. However, our analysis 
of these surveys shows that the Air Force basic training survey and 
the Navy's survey of its subsequent career-specific training students 
are the most comprehensive and detailed surveys used currently within 
the services to obtain information about sexual assault and sexual 
misconduct within initial military training. Table 3 illustrates some 
examples of the types of information obtained from each of the surveys 
currently used by the services to obtain more comprehensive and 
detailed information about sexual assault and sexual misconduct within 
initial military training. 

Table 3: Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct Information Obtained by 
Military Service Initial Military Training Surveys: 

Respondent demographic data; 
Air Force basic training survey: X[A]; 
Army annual basic and subsequent career-specific training survey: 
[Check]; 
Navy basic training survey: [Empty]; 
Navy subsequent career-specific training survey: [Check]. 

Unprofessional contact between instructors and recruits/trainees; 
Air Force basic training survey: [Check]; 
Army annual basic and subsequent career-specific training survey: 
[Empty]; 
Navy basic training survey: [Check]; 
Navy subsequent career-specific training survey: [Check]. 

Experienced sexual harassment; 
Air Force basic training survey: [Check]; 
Army annual basic and subsequent career-specific training survey: 
[Check]; 
Navy basic training survey: [Check]; 
Navy subsequent career-specific training survey: X[B]. 

Experienced sexual assault; 
Air Force basic training survey: [Check]; 
Army annual basic and subsequent career-specific training survey: 
[Check]; 
Navy basic training survey: [Empty]; 
Navy subsequent career-specific training survey: [Check]. 

Specific types of sexual assault offenses (e.g., rape, sexual assault, 
aggravated sexual contact, abusive sexual contact, forcible sodomy, or 
attempts to commit these acts); 
Air Force basic training survey: [Check]; 
Army annual basic and subsequent career-specific training survey: 
[Empty]; 
Navy basic training survey: [Empty]; 
Navy subsequent career-specific training survey: [Check]. 

Who committed the misconduct (identify instructor, staff, or peer); 
Air Force basic training survey: [Check]; 
Army annual basic and subsequent career-specific training survey: 
[Check]; 
Navy basic training survey: [Empty]; 
Navy subsequent career-specific training survey: [Check]. 

Physical location/setting where incident occurred; 
Air Force basic training survey: [Check]; 
Army annual basic and subsequent career-specific training survey: 
[Empty]; 
Navy basic training survey: [Empty]; 
Navy subsequent career-specific training survey: [Check]. 

Reporting of sexual assault or misconduct; 
Air Force basic training survey: [Check]; 
Army annual basic and subsequent career-specific training survey: 
[Empty]; 
Navy basic training survey: [Empty]; 
Navy subsequent career-specific training survey: [Check]. 

Reasons for not reporting; 
Air Force basic training survey: [Check]; 
Army annual basic and subsequent career-specific training survey: 
[Empty]; 
Navy basic training survey: [Check]; 
Navy subsequent career-specific training survey: [Check]. 

Experienced or fear of retaliation for reporting; 
Air Force basic training survey: [Check]; 
Army annual basic and subsequent career-specific training survey: 
[Empty]; 
Navy basic training survey: [Check]; 
Navy subsequent career-specific training survey: [Check]. 

Outcome of reporting; 
Air Force basic training survey: [Check]; 
Army annual basic and subsequent career-specific training survey: 
[Empty]; 
Navy basic training survey: [Empty]; 
Navy subsequent career-specific training survey: [Empty]. 

Services and support received after reporting; 
Air Force basic training survey: [Check]; 
Army annual basic and subsequent career-specific training survey: 
[Empty]; 
Navy basic training survey: [Empty]; 
Navy subsequent career-specific training survey: [Check]. 

Perceptions of senior leadership commitment to appropriately 
preventing and responding to sexual harassment; 
Air Force basic training survey: [Check]; 
Army annual basic and subsequent career-specific training survey: 
[Empty]; 
Navy basic training survey: [Check]; 
Navy subsequent career-specific training survey: [Empty]. 

Perceptions of senior leadership commitment to appropriately 
preventing and responding to sexual assault; 
Air Force basic training survey: [Check]; 
Army annual basic and subsequent career-specific training survey: 
[Empty]; 
Navy basic training survey: [Empty]; 
Navy subsequent career-specific training survey: [Check]. 

Source: GAO analysis of Air Force, Army, and Navy surveys. GAO-14-806. 

Note: The Marine Corps does not conduct formalized surveys for initial 
military training. 

[A] The Air Force basic training survey of recruits asks if respondent 
is male or female; no other demographic data are obtained. 

[B] The Navy survey of students in subsequent career-specific training 
asks whether the respondent experienced sexual harassment prior to or 
after a sexual assault; it does not ask if the respondent experienced 
other sexual harassment. 

[End of table] 

Furthermore, during our meetings with recruits and with instructors 
during our visits, we heard about the continuous challenges in 
preventing and responding to sexual assault during initial military 
training that were common across the services. Some instructors we 
interviewed said that there is a perception of fear to train recruits 
because the instructors can be the target of false allegations from 
recruits resulting in severe punishment. Further, instructors said 
that recruits that are held back in training can be at greater risk of 
possibly committing sexual misconduct or becoming victims of 
misconduct for reasons including being taken away from their support 
group in their original unit or having increased amounts of 
unstructured time. Recruits and instructors said that efforts to 
prevent sexual assaults that occur between males and females during 
basic training, such as requiring recruits to have another recruit of 
the same gender with them at all times or separating males and females 
in different buildings, do not prevent same-sex sexual assaults. 
Recruits from three of the four services said they perceived that 
reporting sexual assault that occurred during basic training could 
result in an extension of their basic training in order to participate 
in an investigation or trial and, additionally, that they could 
experience retribution for reporting a sexual assault. A recruit at 
one service said that if she experienced an assault, she might either 
not report it or wait until after graduation from training to make a 
report. This concern was similarly raised by an independent panel's 
report on sexual assault in the military from June 2014, which 
recommended that DOD establish specific training and policies 
addressing retaliation toward peers who intervene or report sexual 
assault.[Footnote 58] 

Without better information about sexual assault and misconduct that 
can occur during initial military training obtained through a survey 
or other tool, senior service officials may not have the quality of 
information needed to improve their sexual assault and other sexual 
misconduct prevention programs. Further, military training leadership 
may have difficulty in determining the appropriate policy or procedure 
changes or other corrective actions that could best address remaining 
challenges in preventing sexual assault within initial military 
training without more comprehensive and detailed information obtained 
specifically from the initial military training population, and this 
information can assist leadership in identifying and sharing key 
practices and lessons learned across the services for preventing and 
responding to sexual assault and sexual misconduct. 

Conclusions: 

DOD has taken a number of actions to prevent, investigate, and respond 
to sexual assault incidents within the department. However, based on 
DOD data, recruits and other junior enlisted servicemembers appear to 
be especially vulnerable to sexual assault and related misconduct. The 
Air Force has been proactive in addressing how to improve the climate 
during basic training to prevent such incidents from occurring since 
the allegations became known in 2012. Air Force officials believe that 
their actions as a whole have improved the climate at basic training. 
However, until the Air Force identifies a time frame for establishing 
performance goals and measures to evaluate the effectiveness and 
improvements resulting from its actions taken, it will be unable to 
gauge its progress or take corrective actions when needed to address 
unforeseen problems that may arise or actions that are not working as 
intended. 

Further, DOD has established a forum--CORBT--for sharing lessons 
learned at the services' basic training locations. CORBT provides an 
opportunity for all the military services to share their experiences 
across the services. However, until (1) CORBT's role is clarified and 
formalized to include lessons learned from prevention of sexual 
assault and other related misconduct or inappropriate behavior and (2) 
the council's membership is broadened to include other key 
stakeholders, such as the Marine Corps, in sexual assault prevention, 
DOD will not have a process to ensure that best practices are shared 
with all services and that its efforts to prevent sexual assaults 
during basic training are maximized department-wide. Moreover, the 
Commander's 2012 report noted that sexual assault and related 
misconduct during Air Force career-specific training should be 
examined separately. The Navy has more data from its survey on these 
incidents during career-specific training, while the Air Force has a 
survey tool that it hopes will provide more data on these incidents 
during basic training. The Army is hoping to develop a more 
comprehensive survey for the basic training environment, while the 
Marine Corps does not have such plans. However, none of the military 
services have detailed survey data to help provide information on both 
the basic and career-specific training environments or plans to 
leverage each other's surveys. Without more comprehensive and detailed 
data, including in-depth information on assaults and other improper 
behavior occurring at basic and subsequent career-specific military 
training sites--such as the relationship between the victim and 
perpetrator--decision makers may be challenged to best determine how 
to reduce sexual assault incidents in the initial training 
environment. As the services have various ongoing efforts or plans to 
obtain such data, leveraging existing efforts could produce more 
effective and efficient outcomes. 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

We are making five recommendations to the Secretary of Defense to 
ensure that efforts under way within the services are achieving the 
desired goals of better preventing, investigating, and responding to 
sexual assault and to leverage existing resources to assist in that 
effort. 

In order to help ensure that the actions taken by the Air Force are 
better preventing, investigating, and responding to sexual assaults 
incidents during basic training, we recommend that the Secretary of 
Defense direct the Secretary of the Air Force to establish an 
oversight framework to be used to evaluate the effectiveness of 
actions taken in response to the recommendations in the Commander's 
report. This would include: 

* identifying time frames for completion of its efforts to develop and 
implement performance goals and measures for evaluating the progress 
made as a result of implementing its actions and: 

* adding the results, or preliminary results, of that evaluation in 
the department's next annual report to Congress on sexual assault. 

As CORBT is currently used by most of the military services as the 
forum for sharing lessons learned across the services regarding better 
prevention, investigation, and response to sexual assault within basic 
training, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the 
military services, in collaboration with the Director of DOD's Sexual 
Assault Prevention and Response Office, to clarify the CORBT charter 
to: 

* define and finalize in policy its role as the mechanism for 
collaborating and sharing lessons learned for better preventing, 
investigating, and responding to sexual assault and misconduct during 
initial military training--both basic and subsequent career-specific 
training--and: 

* identify and include key stakeholders who should participate in the 
forum, such as officials from DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and 
Response Office, representatives from the U.S. Marine Corps, and 
officials responsible for addressing sexual harassment and other forms 
of misconduct. 

In order for the military services to obtain more comprehensive and 
detailed information regarding sexual assault prevention and response 
during basic and subsequent career-specific training to help oversee 
their programs, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct each 
military service, in collaboration with the Director of DOD's Sexual 
Assault Prevention and Response Office, to develop and implement a 
tool, such as a survey, or leverage existing military training surveys-
-such as those used by the Air Force or the Navy--that will provide 
more comprehensive and detailed information to decision makers about 
sexual assault and other sexual misconduct that occur during initial 
military training, including basic and subsequent career-specific 
military training. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

We provided a draft of this report to DOD for review and comment. In 
written comments, DOD concurred with four of the five recommendations 
and partially concurred with the fifth recommendation. DOD's comments 
are summarized below and reprinted in appendix V. DOD also provided 
technical comments on the draft report, which we incorporated as 
appropriate. 

DOD concurred with the first two recommendations that the Air Force 
establish an oversight framework to be used to evaluate the 
effectiveness of actions taken in response to recommendations in the 
Commander's Report. This would include (1) identifying time frames for 
completion of its efforts to develop and implement performance goals 
and measures for evaluating the progress made as a result of 
implementing its actions and (2) adding the results, or preliminary 
results, of that evaluation in the department's next annual report to 
Congress on sexual assault. In commenting on the draft report, DOD 
stated that the Air Force continually evaluates implementation actions 
on a monthly basis using its Recruiting, Education, and Training 
Oversight Council. We acknowledged in this report that the Air Force 
took steps towards developing an oversight framework by establishing 
the council, comprised of senior leadership and key stakeholders from 
across the Air Force's recruiting and training environments, to 
oversee improvement efforts. Further, we reported that the Air Force 
had developed data sources and that it uses those data sources to 
track the implementation of the recommendations from the Commander's 
report. DOD also stated in its comments that the Air Force provided 
metrics to us, and that it continues to refine performance goals and 
measures utilizing baseline data from the RAND trainee survey that as 
of fiscal year 2015 will include 1 year of data collection. We stated 
in the report that the Air Force tracks the number of allegations of 
sexual assault or misconduct and also tracks other information 
regarding the status of its implementation of the recommendations from 
the Commander's report. However, as noted in the report, we found that 
the Air Force has not established performance goals and performance 
measures that would evaluate the effectiveness, or impact, resulting 
from the actions it has taken in response to the recommendations in 
the Commander's report, or in response to other initiatives the Air 
Force may have underway, such as those in the technical training or 
flying training environments. Specifically, while the Air Force has 
effectively tracked the implementation of the recommendations, without 
evaluating the impact of its actions through the use of performance 
goals and measures, it may not know whether it needs to sustain the 
efforts it has implemented or undertake different corrective actions. 
Lastly, DOD stated in its comments that the Air Education and Training 
Command's efforts remain focused on ensuring a climate of dignity and 
respect and transforming a culture, which GAO acknowledges, can take 5 
to 7 years to achieve. We reiterate that large organizational changes 
can take 5 to 7 years to implement. As a result, having a fully 
developed oversight framework to gauge progress and provide consistent 
focus is critical to successful transformation. As the Air Force has 
taken some steps towards developing an oversight framework, we believe 
that identification of timeframes for completion of its efforts to 
develop and implement performance goals and measures is an important 
next step, as is reporting on its efforts to internal and external 
stakeholders such as Congress. 

DOD concurred with the two recommendations aimed at improving the 
council used by most of the military services as the forum for sharing 
lessons learned across the services regarding better prevention, 
investigation, and response to sexual assault within basic training, 
including to clarify the charter to define and finalize in policy the 
role of the council in both basic and subsequent career-specific 
training and to identify and include key stakeholders who should 
participate in the forum. 

DOD partially concurred with the fifth recommendation that the 
military services develop and implement a survey, or leverage existing 
military training surveys, which will provide more comprehensive and 
detailed information to decision makers about sexual assault and other 
sexual misconduct that occurs during initial military training, 
including basic and subsequent career-specific military training. In 
its written comments, DOD stated that the department values the intent 
of this recommendation; but stated that more analysis needs to be 
conducted to determine the best tool or methodology to meet the intent 
of this recommendation and reduce the negative impact of possible 
survey fatigue. DOD stated that it conducted focus groups in the 
summer of 2014 at training locations. Questions covered topics such as 
general awareness of services available as well as reporting options, 
opinions on the efficiency and applicability of training, changes in 
policy, perceptions of command climate and military culture regarding 
sexual assault, and bystander intervention approaches. DOD did not 
describe in its written comments the comprehensiveness and detail of 
information obtained or the methodology of those focus groups, such as 
if the focus groups were conducted at both basic and subsequent career-
specific training environments, how trainees were selected for 
participation, or whether the focus groups addressed the range of 
sexual misconduct aside from sexual assault, such as sexual harassment 
or inappropriate relationships. However, DOD noted that all four of 
the military services participated in the effort. DOD also did not 
discuss in its comments any plans for future efforts to obtain more 
comprehensive and detailed information about sexual assault and other 
sexual misconduct from the initial military training environment. 
Further, DOD did not discuss plans for conducting more analysis to 
determine the best tool or methodology to use to obtain more detailed 
and comprehensive data and information about sexual assault and other 
sexual misconduct that occurs during initial military training. 

As noted in the report, we heard in our discussion with recruits at 
various services that there are reasons why they may not report sexual 
assault or other misconduct during training, such a fear of being held 
back in training or fear of reprisal. Therefore, we continue to 
believe that there are benefits to obtaining more comprehensive and 
detailed information about the range of sexual assault and other 
misconduct that can be committed by either instructors or fellow 
recruits or trainees, such as through an anonymous tool such as 
surveys conducted by the Air Force at its basic training and the Navy 
at its subsequent career-specific training. We recommended that the 
military services develop a survey, or leverage existing surveys, in 
order to provide options for DOD and allow the department to determine 
what tool or tools would best obtain information in an anonymous 
manner that is more comprehensive and detailed. We also reported that 
initial military training is comprised of young men and women of 
junior enlisted ranks, that DOD has some data to suggest that initial 
military training is an important area of concern for DOD related to 
sexual assault, and that sexual assault is an underreported crime. We 
believe that an anonymous tool such as a survey would provide decision 
makers more comprehensive and detailed information on sexual assaults 
and misconduct across initial military training important for sharing 
lessons learned and for leaders to determine appropriate policy and 
procedural changes to further prevent sexual assault and other sexual 
misconduct. Therefore, we have clarified our recommendation to 
emphasize the importance of collecting more comprehensive and detailed 
data through an anonymous tool that could be a survey or some other 
means that DOD identifies through analysis. 

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense, the 
Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, and 
appropriate congressional committees. In addition, this report is 
available at no charge on the GAO website at [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staffs have any questions about this report, please 
contact me at (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov. Contact points for 
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found 
on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major 
contributions to this report are listed in appendix V. 

Signed by: 

Brenda S. Farrell: 
Director: 
Defense Capabilities and Management: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology: 

To examine the extent to which the Air Force implemented the 
recommendations in the Commander's report, we reviewed the Commander's 
2012 report and related Air Force documents, including policy 
memorandums, staffing reports, regulations, and briefings. We also 
conducted interviews with command leadership, senior officials, and 
military training instructors at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland and 
Randolph Air Force Bases[Footnote 59] to discuss actions taken by the 
Air Force to implement the recommendations. While at Lackland Air 
Force Base, we also noted physical changes that had been made in 
response to the recommendations in the Commander's report. Upon our 
request, the Air Force provided its analysis of whether the 
implementation of each recommendation from the Commander's report was 
complete. However, based on our review of the Air Force analysis, in 
some instances we disagreed with the Air Force's designation of 
completeness of implementation for some recommendations. We 
independently assessed the completeness of implementation for each of 
the 46 recommendations from the Commander's report. 

To determine our designation of completeness of implementation, we 
used content analysis to compare the documents and statements of 
officials detailing actions taken by the Air Force to the findings and 
recommendations outlined in the Commander's report. To perform this 
analysis, we developed a data collection instrument that listed the 
finding and resulting recommendation for each of the 46 
recommendations from the Commander's report and detailed any actions 
taken by the Air Force to address each recommendation, as well as the 
pertinent support from Air Force-provided policies, other guidance, or 
other documents, such as staffing information. If a recommendation 
related to physical changes in the training environment, we detailed 
the results of our inspection performed while on our visit, including 
photographic evidence. An analyst categorized each of the 
recommendations as one of the following: (1) "implemented" if our 
analysis showed that the actions taken by the Air Force in response to 
the recommendations fully address the findings made in the Commander's 
report and fully institutionalized those actions into Air Force 
policies and procedures, (2) "partially implemented" if our analysis 
showed that additional actions are needed to fully address the finding 
and resulting recommendation in the Commander's report or if further 
steps are needed to ensure the changes are fully institutionalized in 
Air Force policies and procedures, or (3) "not implemented" if the Air 
Force did not take identifiable steps to address the 
recommendation.[Footnote 60] A second analyst independently reviewed 
the same information and recorded the assessment and the basis for the 
assessment. The two analysts created a final assessment that 
reconciled their two independent assessments and reflects the 
analysts' consensus. 

To examine the extent to which the Air Force evaluated the 
effectiveness of the actions taken in response to the recommendations 
from the Commander's report, we reviewed documents and interviewed Air 
Force officials regarding its efforts to measure the impact of 
corrective actions it has taken. For example, we reviewed the charter 
of the oversight body created by the Air Force to oversee these 
efforts and reviewed documents detailing any goals for implementation, 
such as interim status updates produced by the Air Force and the Air 
Force portion of the Department of Defense's (DOD) annual report on 
sexual assault in the military. We compared its efforts against key 
practices for organizations undergoing change or transformation, such 
as involving senior leadership and developing a framework for 
oversight, including establishing performance goals and measures that 
would enable it to evaluate the effectiveness of its actions to better 
prevent and respond to sexual assault and misconduct.[Footnote 61] 
Further, we reviewed our body of work on effective performance 
measurement and reviewed the Air Force's efforts, if any, to provide 
oversight and use of performance measures to evaluate the 
effectiveness of its sexual assault and sexual misconduct prevention 
efforts in the basic training environment.[Footnote 62] 

To examine the extent to which the military services share lessons 
learned and have the data to oversee their efforts to prevent sexual 
assault and misconduct during initial military training, we reviewed 
the services' efforts to collaborate and share lessons learned and 
compared these efforts to best practices for effective collaboration. 
[Footnote 63] Further, we reviewed the policies and procedures in 
place within each service that are intended to prevent sexual assaults 
during initial military training that could be considered key 
practices or lessons learned and discussed with service officials any 
assessment of the impact of these efforts. In addition to Joint Base 
San Antonio-Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, we visited three basic 
training locations to review policies and procedures in place, or in 
development, to better prevent sexual assault and misconduct. We 
visited the Army's Fort Jackson, South Carolina; Naval Station Great 
Lakes, Illinois; and Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South 
Carolina,[Footnote 64] in order to interview command leadership, 
sexual assault response coordinators, victim advocates, chaplains, 
judge advocates, and officials from military criminal investigative 
organizations. We also held meetings with basic training instructors 
and recruits to understand from their perspectives how policies and 
procedures are implemented and any remaining challenges in preventing 
sexual assault during basic training.[Footnote 65] 

We identified sources the department uses to track or monitor sexual 
assaults or obtain information about sexual misconduct through DOD's 
comprehensive instruction on preventing sexual assault and interviews 
with DOD officials. We reviewed DOD sources of data, such as annual 
strategic plans, as well as DOD's sexual assault prevention and 
response directives and instructions that identify roles and 
responsibilities regarding performance measurement for the 
department's sexual assault prevention and response program. We 
interviewed military service officials about service-specific efforts 
to obtain more comprehensive and detailed information about sexual 
assault and sexual misconduct that occur during initial military 
training, and obtained service documents related to those efforts, 
such as surveys. We obtained any survey instruments used by the 
military services to obtain information from their basic training 
populations, subsequent career-specific training populations, or both 
about sexual assault or other sexual misconduct, especially regarding 
misconduct that goes unreported to authorities. As we identified that 
there were several ongoing efforts in place among the services to 
survey these populations, we identified similarities in the questions 
asked and types of information obtained. We compared service efforts 
to obtain this information to our prior work on collaboration and 
reducing fragmentation, overlap, and duplication.[Footnote 66] Unless 
otherwise noted, we assessed the reliability of any data used in the 
development of this report by reviewing related documentation and 
interviewing agency officials knowledgeable about the data. 

We interviewed officials from the Office of the Secretary of Defense 
and the military services on the methods they use to track sexual 
assaults or obtain information about sexual misconduct, including a 
department-wide database that became operational during this review 
and department-wide or service-specific surveys and our prior related 
work reviewing DOD's sexual assault program in which we made 
recommendations related to a comprehensive oversight framework for 
DOD's program.[Footnote 67] We obtained data resulting from the DOD's 
Workplace and Gender Relations Survey of Active Duty Members, which is 
publicly available as part of DOD's Annual Report on Sexual Assault in 
the Military, in order to review the percentages of servicemembers who 
reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact during either basic or 
subsequent career-specific training. We obtained the ages and enlisted 
ranks of victims and offenders of sexual assault from unrestricted 
investigations identified in DOD's annual reports from fiscal years 
2012 and 2013. As the annual reports satisfy a congressionally 
required mandate to provide statistics and updates to Congress 
regarding sexual assault in the military, we did not independently 
assess the reliability of these data and the data did not materially 
affect our findings, conclusions, or recommendations. We requested 
additional data from the DOD's Workplace and Gender Relations Survey 
of Active Duty Members from the Defense Manpower Data Center, such as 
more detailed data from those survey respondents who stated that they 
experienced unwanted sexual contact during basic or career-specific 
training, such as whether they reported the assault to authorities, 
the location of the training, and if the offender was a supervisor. 
However, Defense Manpower Data Center officials responded that lower 
levels of data as requested were not reportable because of a small 
sample size of respondents. Therefore, we excluded these data from 
this report. However, we assessed the reliability of the high-level 
data presented in DOD's annual report on sexual assault in the 
military that includes data from this survey, and we determined that 
high-level data elements were sufficiently reliable for the purposes 
of this report, such as a discussion of the percentage of active duty 
servicemembers who report that they experienced unwanted sexual 
contact during initial military training. 

We conducted this performance audit from August 2013 to September 2014 
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. 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: Air Force Reviews of Sexual Assault and Misconduct during 
Initial Military Training: 

In response to the allegations of sexual assault and other sexual 
misconduct committed by Air Force military basic training instructors, 
the Air Force carried out three reviews in order to uncover any 
weaknesses in the initial military training environment and factors 
that contributed to the delay in reporting of sexual assault 
allegations at Lackland Air Force Base. 

* The Commander's 2012 report. As part of the process to develop the 
Commander's report, a team, led by a major general in the Air Force, 
interviewed different levels of command leadership, military training 
instructors and the supervisors of instructors, and faculty and 
students at technical training schools. Further, the team conducted 
focus groups with recruits at basic training and military training 
instructors and their spouses and provided anonymous questionnaires to 
over 6,000 recruits at basic training and to over 400 military 
training instructors. In total, the team surveyed 18,000 recruits, 
military training instructors, technical training instructors, and 
technical training students. Air Force officials stated that they did 
not interview identified victims involved with the ongoing 
investigations of military training instructor misconduct because they 
were concerned the victims may have felt revictimized by the 
additional questions. However, the team reviewed law enforcement 
investigative materials, including interview records and reports 
associated with individual cases, including victim interviews, 
collected by the two investigative offices in the Air Force with 
responsibilities for investigating sexual assault and other sexual 
misconduct--the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) and 
Security Forces Operations, Investigations (SFOI). AFOSI investigates 
allegations of sexual assault and unprofessional relationships 
involving sexual contact with an authority figure. SFOI investigates 
unprofessional relationships involving an authority figure without 
sexual contact. The team also interviewed leadership from basic 
training facilities of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. The resulting 
report focuses on preventing, investigating, and responding to sexual 
assault during basic training; it does not make recommendations 
regarding the resolution of sexual assault allegations. 

* Technical training review. In April 2013, the Commander of the 2nd 
Air Force directed a working group to review student-on-student sexual 
assaults in technical training that followed the methodology of the 
Commander's report. The findings and recommendations of the 
Commander's 2012 report focus primarily on the basic military training 
environment, stating that only a limited review of technical training 
was possible and that the report would not provide a fully developed 
set of recommendations regarding technical training. The Commander's 
2012 report suggested a follow-on review of the technical training 
environment, and as part of the review, the Air Force led 18 focus 
groups consisting of students, instructors, and senior leadership of 
various ranks across three technical training locations to discuss 
sexual assault and other sexual misconduct. The working group also 
conducted a review of 27 past cases of alleged sexual assault from 
January 2010 through December 2012 to determine factors that 
contributed to sexual assault. The report presents findings related to 
weaknesses in areas such as leadership, culture, training, and 
perceived barriers to reporting sexual assaults, and it contained 24 
recommendations to address these weaknesses and proposed five areas 
for further review to determine an appropriate organizational response. 

* Law enforcement review of organization response to misconduct. The 
Commander of the 2nd Air Force directed an investigating officer 
within the Air Force to conduct a law enforcement investigation into 
all aspects of the facts and circumstances concerning the 
organizational response to military training instructor misconduct 
within basic training. The review was conducted from July through 
August 2012. 

[End of section] 

Appendix III: Recommendations Either Not Implemented or Partially 
Implemented from the Air Education and Training Command Commander's 
Report, Air Force Designation, and GAO Analysis of Implementation: 

Recommendation: 1. Eliminate weaknesses in existing detection measures 
by improving surveillance and entry control procedures; 
Air Force designation: Partially implemented. Air Force officials told 
us that upgrading security surveillance and monitoring equipment 
required a $2 million investment, and as of July 2014, the video 
camera systems attained full operational capability in three of its 
facilities, although additional work will be conducted in fiscal year 
2015 to expand this system to other basic training facilities. The 
upgraded equipment is to provide improved security with better 
fidelity and longer storage periods of video monitoring. Air Force 
officials designated this recommendation as partially completed as 
many steps have been taken to address security measures with the 
exception of the completion of equipment upgrades; 
GAO analysis of implementation: Partially implemented. We agree with 
this assessment. During our visit in November 2013, we observed 
partial completion of other actions related to this recommendation; 
for example, doors to utility closets had not all been removed and 
military training instructors' offices did not all have windows. Air 
Force officials stated that most of these changes were completed prior 
to trainees' occupying those spaces; 
however, completion of all new construction of recruit housing will 
continue through 2021. 

Recommendation: 2. Increase staffing of military training instructors 
to fill all 528 authorized positions; 
Air Force designation: Partially implemented. The Air Force provided 
us with information on its overall staffing capabilities per unit, and 
officials told us that this recommendation will be phased in over time 
and will be completed by June 2015. Air Force officials designated 
this recommendation as partially completed because staffing 
adjustments are under way; 
GAO analysis of implementation: Partially implemented. We agree with 
this assessment. 

Recommendation: 3. Shorten the instructors' tour length to a maximum 
of 3 years and do not allow them follow-on special duty assignments; 
Air Force designation: Partially implemented. Air Force officials told 
us that this recommendation will be phased in over time and will be 
completed by June 2015. Air Force officials designated this 
recommendation as partially completed because staffing adjustments are 
under way; 
GAO analysis of implementation: Partially implemented. We agree with 
this assessment. 

Recommendation: 4. Shorten the duration of basic military training 
from 8.5 weeks to 7.5 weeks to eliminate "white space."; 
Air Force designation: Partially implemented. In July 2014, Air Force 
officials told us that the overall training length requirements have 
remained the same, although they plan to restructure and condense the 
training into 7.5 weeks to eliminate "white space," and the last week 
will focus on core values of the Air Force; 
GAO analysis of implementation: Partially implemented. As Air Force 
officials stated that they plan to begin implementation of this change 
in 2015, we determined this recommendation to be partially implemented. 

Recommendation: 5. Ensure that candidates across all career fields are 
considered for the command of training squadrons; 
Air Force designation: Implemented. The Commander's report found that 
some career fields did not release high-quality candidates to basic 
training command positions, limiting the pool of highly qualified 
commander candidates. As a result of the recommendation, the Air Force 
requested selections for officers to serve as basic training 
commanders for 2013 and 2015 rotations from a pool that consisted of 
all career fields. The Air Force was granted its request for both 2013 
and 2015, and therefore the Air Force designates this recommendation 
as completed; 
GAO analysis of implementation: Partially implemented. Air Force 
officials do not know whether the basic training command will be given 
this priority of choice in commander selections after 2015. Because 
the Air Force has not formalized this policy in guidance, we are 
designating this recommendation as partially completed. 

Recommendation: 6. Ensure that training on how to report military 
training instructor misconduct reassures trainees that there will be 
no negative consequences for them if they allege sexual assault or 
other unacceptable behavior; 
Air Force designation: Implemented. The Commander's report found that 
some trainees were afraid of punishment if they reported sexual 
assault or other unacceptable behavior because they were warned in 
both orientation briefings and on Trainee Comment Sheets that false 
statements would be punished. Further, criminal investigations found 
that some trainees were told by their military training instructors 
that they would be negatively affected, such as discharged from the 
Air Force, if they reported a sexual assault or other unacceptable 
behavior. In response to this recommendation, the Air Force removed 
this warning regarding providing false statements from the Trainee 
Comment Sheet and now mentions in the group commander's orientation 
briefing that trainees will not be punished for reporting allegations. 
It therefore considers this recommendation to be completed; 
GAO analysis of implementation: Partially implemented. A video message 
from senior Air Force leadership presented to trainees during 
orientation repeatedly states that false accusations will be punished. 
As a result, trainees may continue to have concerns about being 
punished or negatively affected for reporting sexual assaults, and 
thus we designated this recommendation as partially completed. 
Further, in survey data provided by the Air Force for October 2013 
through January 2014, of the trainees that reported witnessing or 
experiencing maltreatment, maltraining, or unprofessional 
relationships involving military training instructors, a majority of 
trainees claimed they did not report the misconduct for various 
reasons. 

Recommendation: 7. Develop and institutionalize a more effective 
incentive program for military training instructor duty; 
Air Force designation: Implemented. The Air Force took no action, 
stating that the recommendation was completed, as military training 
instructors already receive the Air Force's top rate of incentive pay 
for their duties. The Air Force provided documentation stating that 
military training instructors have received the same level of special 
duty pay since 1985; 
GAO analysis of implementation: Not implemented. As the Air Force made 
no identifiable change as a result of this recommendation, we 
determined this recommendation to be not implemented at this time. For 
example, the Commander's report suggested that the Air Force consider 
incentives toward promotion similar to those at the Army and Navy; 
however, the Air Force did not explain its rationale for not 
implementing this action. 

Sources: GAO analysis and Air Force analysis of actions taken by the 
Air Force in response to recommendations. GAO-14-806. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Appendix IV: Potential Data Sources Identified by the Air Force: 

Air Force officials identified six potential data sources that they 
stated contain key information for tracking the status of the 
implementation of recommendations from the Commander's report. 

* Trainee Abuse and Misconduct Survey: Air Force officials stated that 
this data source will help them evaluate the extent of sexual assault 
and other misconduct in basic military training. The Air Force stated 
that it fully implemented this survey on October 28, 2013, after it 
pretested questions in a pilot survey. The survey asks trainees if 
they experienced, witnessed, or heard about sexual assault or other 
misconduct from their military training instructors or other trainees, 
addressing topics such as sexual harassment, unprofessional 
relationships, and sexual assault. Additionally, the survey asks 
respondents about their comfort in reporting allegations of sexual 
assault or misconduct, their familiarity with different sexual assault 
resources, as well as why they would or would not report a sexual 
assault or other misconduct; however, Air Force officials stated that 
they will wait for 1 year of data to be collected to determine whether 
it can be applied to other environments, such as the technical 
training environment. Further, despite Air Force officials stating 
that this survey would be important for assessing the impact of their 
actions, one senior command official expressed concerns over the 
reliability of survey information after receiving initial data from 
the survey and stated that he questioned whether recruits were being 
truthful in their responses. 

* Military Training Instructor Survey: The Air Force identified this 
survey as a tool to understand instructors' perceptions of the culture 
and the basic military training environment. While the Air Force has 
developed questions for this survey, the Air Force stated that it has 
not yet implemented the survey. An Air Force instruction stated that 
the Air Force plans to distribute the survey among military training 
instructors twice a year to gather feedback on work experiences as 
well as misconduct in the basic military training environment, but the 
instruction does not identify a timeline for the initial 
implementations of this survey. An early version of the survey that 
the Air Force provided to us asks military training instructors about 
job stressors, perceptions of promotion opportunities, as well as 
their comfort in understanding how to interpret sexual assault and 
misconduct policies. 

* Quarterly Reports by the Standardization and Evaluation Team: Air 
Force officials stated that a team performs random inspections on a 
weekly basis to check compliance with specific policies, including 
some actions related to specific recommendations, such as ensuring 
that trainees will not separate from other trainees who are assigned 
to accompany them at all times. The Standardization and Evaluation 
team aggregates findings into a report and distributes the report to 
the commander of basic military training and other leadership every 
quarter. 

* Analysis of Staffing Information: Air Force officials reported that 
they use data on the quality of instructor staffing by categories such 
as rank, experience, and performance ratings to track the status of 
recommendations, along with staffing numbers for instructors and 
leadership staff. The Air Force states that it plans to use these data 
sources to track some recommendations to help ensure that certain 
changes in leadership and staffing are continued, such as increases in 
staffing for military training instructors and security forces. 

* Training Group Quarterly Survey Report: This report aggregates data 
from end-of-course surveys, random and targeted group surveys, and 
trainee comment sheets into a report that is distributed to command 
leadership every quarter. The report outlines feedback received from 
trainees throughout basic military training on topics such as the 
overall quality of their training, professionalism and quality of 
instructor staff, and general perceptions of support received while in 
the program. Specifically, the survey report contains response data on 
trainees' level of satisfaction with sexual assault prevention and 
response courses, and perceived ability to report misconduct, as well 
as if trainees experienced, witnessed, or heard about sexual assault 
or other misconduct during basic military training. 

* Military Training Instructor Discipline Spreadsheet: In response to 
the Commander's report recommendations to develop and utilize a 
tracking tool for military training instructor misconduct, the Air 
Force developed a spreadsheet that officials said they use to track 
misconduct, disciplinary actions, and administrative actions for 
military training instructors. The spreadsheet is composed of fields 
that allow Air Force officials to input information related to alleged 
offenses, actions taken to address misconduct, parties involved, and 
other pertinent factors. 

Appendix V: Comments from the Department of Defense: 

Under Secretary of Defense: 
Personnel and Readiness: 
4000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 20301-4000: 

Brenda S. Farrell: 
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management: 
Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street NW: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Dear Ms. Farrell: 

This is the Department of Defense (ODD) response to the General 
Accountability Office's (GAO) draft report, (GAO-14-806), "Military 
Personnel: DoD Needs to rake Further Actions to Prevent Sexual Assault 
During Initial Military Training" dated August 11, 2014 (GAO 351840). 

The Department agrees with the intent of the recommendations and 
appreciates the GAO's interest in our efforts to prevent and respond 
to sexual assault in the military training environment. We will work 
with the Services to implement the recommendations and note in several 
instances the work has already begun. The enclosure provides comments 
concerning the recommendations. We have provided suggested technical 
comments and corrections to your staff which we feel should be 
included in the final version. 

Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment on the draft 
report. My point of contact for is Major General Jeffrey J. Snow, 
Director, Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. He may be 
reached at (571) 372-2643. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Jessica L. Wright: 

Enclosure: As stated: 

cc: Department of Defense Inspector General. 

GAO Draft Report Dated August 11, 2014: 
GAO-14-806 (GAO Code 351840): 

“Military Personnel: DoD Needs to Take Further Action to Prevent
Sexual Assault During Initial Military Training” 

Department Of Defense Comments To The GAO Recommendation: 

Recommendation 1: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense 
direct the Secretary of the Air Force to establish an oversight 
framework to be used to evaluate the effectiveness of actions taken in 
response to the recommendations in the Commander's Report. This would 
include the identification of timeframes for completion of its efforts 
to develop and implement performance goals and measure for evaluating 
the progress made as a result of implementing its actions. 

DoD Response: Concur. This effort began on January 5, 2013 when the 
Air Force Air Education and Training Command (AETC/CC) established the 
Recruiting, Education, and Training Oversight Council (RETOC). The 
AETC/CC directed the establishment of an oversight council to “review 
the progress and effectiveness of previously implemented actions, 
provide an expanded perspective on future actions, and advise the 
commander on strategic issues affecting Airmen safety, good order, and 
discipline within the recruiting, education, and training environments.”
(RETOC Charter) Currently, the AETC/CC assesses the implementation 
status and effectiveness of 46 commander directed investigation 
recommendations and thirteen parallel initiatives related to Basic 
Military Training. Additionally, the AETC/CC assesses thirteen
recruiting initiatives and an additional ten Technical Training 
initiatives. Recently, the RETOC expanded into the Flying Training and 
Education environments to identify potential initiatives for these 
environments. AETC provided these metrics to the GAO and continues to 
refine performance goals and measures utilizing baseline data from the 
RAND Trainee Survey. FY15 will represent one year of this survey's 
data collection. AETC's efforts remain focused on ensuring a climate 
of dignity and respect and transforming a culture, which GAO 
acknowledges, can take five to seven years to achieve. (GAO Footnote 
14, Page 5) 

Recommendation 2: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense 
direct the Secretary of the Air Force to establish an oversight 
framework to be used to evaluate the effectiveness of actions taken in 
response to the recommendations in the Commander's Report. This would 
include adding the results, or preliminary results, of that evaluation 
in the department's next annual report on sexual assault to Congress. 

DoD Response: Concur. As stated in the response to Recommendation 1, 
the AETC/CC continually evaluates implementation actions on a monthly 
basis via the RETOC. 

Recommendation 3: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense 
direct the military services, in collaboration with the Director of DoD'
s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, clarify the CORBT 
charter to define and finalize in policy its role as the mechanism for 
collaborating and sharing lessons learned for better preventing, 
investigating, and responding to sexual assault and misconduct during 
initial military training - both basic and subsequent career-specific 
training. 

DoD Response: Concur. 

Recommendation 4: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense 
direct the military services, in collaboration with the Director of 
DoD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, clarify the CORBT 
charter to identify and include key stakeholders who should 
participate in the forum, such as DoD's Sexual Assault Prevention and 
Response Office, representative from the U.S. Marine Corps, and 
officials responsible for addressing sexual harassment and other forms 
of misconduct. 

DoD Response: Concur. 

Recommendation 5: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense 
direct the military services, in collaboration with the Director of 
DoD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, develop and 
implement a survey, or leverage existing military training surveys 
such as those used by the Air Force or the Navy, that will provide 
more comprehensive and detailed information to decision makers about 
sexual assault and other sexual misconduct that occurs during initial 
military training, including basic and subsequent career-specific 
military training. 

DoD Response: Partially concur. Overall, the Department values the 
intent of this recommendation; however more analysis needs to be 
conducted to determine the best tool or methodology to meet the intent 
of this recommendation and reduce the negative impact of possible 
survey fatigue. The Department conducted focus groups in the summer of 
2014 that specifically aimed to solicit feedback from trainees at 
training installations. All four of the military services and the 
National Guard Bureau participated in the focus group effort. Questions
covered topics ranging from general awareness of services available as 
well as reporting options, opinions on the efficiency and 
applicability of training, changes in policy, perceptions of command 
climate and military culture regarding sexual assault, and bystander 
intervention approaches. Participants were also asked to share any 
ideas or recommendations on how to improve prevention and response 
efforts. Results of this effort will be published in the Department's 
next annual report on sexual assault to Congress. 

[End of section] 

Appendix VI: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Brenda S. Farrell, (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov: 

Staff Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the contact named above, Lori Atkinson (Assistant 
Director), James Ashley, Tracy Barnes, Margaret Best, Scott Bruckner, 
Grace Coleman, Suzanne M. Perkins, Beverly Schladt, Leigh Ann 
Sennette, and Michael Silver made key contributions to this report. 

[End of section] 

Related GAO Products: 

Military Personnel: DOD Has Taken Steps to Meet the Health Needs of 
Deployed Servicewomen, but Actions Are Needed to Enhance Care for 
Sexual Assault Victims. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-182]. Washington, D.C.: January 29, 
2013. 

Preventing Sexual Harassment: DOD Needs Greater Leadership Commitment 
and an Oversight Framework. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-809]. Washington, D.C.: September 
21, 2011. 

Military Justice: Oversight and Better Collaboration Needed for Sexual 
Assault Investigations and Adjudications. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-579]. Washington, D.C.: June 22, 
2011. 

Military Personnel: DOD's and the Coast Guard's Sexual Assault 
Prevention and Response Programs Need to Be Further Strengthened. 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-405T]. Washington, 
D.C.: February 24, 2010. 

Military Personnel: Additional Actions Are Needed to Strengthen DOD's 
and the Coast Guard's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Programs. 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-215]. Washington, D.C.: 
February 3, 2010. 

Military Personnel: DOD's and the Coast Guard's Sexual Assault 
Prevention and Response Programs Face Implementation and Oversight 
Challenges. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-924]. 
Washington, D.C.: August 29, 2008. 

Military Personnel: The DOD and Coast Guard Academies Have Taken Steps 
to Address Incidents of Sexual Harassment and Assault, but Greater 
Federal Oversight Is Needed. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-296]. Washington, D.C.: January 17, 
2008. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] According to Department of Defense Directive 6495.01, Sexual 
Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) Program, DOD Directive 6495.01 
(Jan. 23, 2012) (incorporating change Apr. 30, 2013), sexual assault 
is defined as intentional sexual contact characterized by the use of 
force, threats, intimidation, or abuse of authority or when the victim 
does not or cannot consent. The term includes a broad category of 
sexual offenses consisting of the following specific Uniform Code of 
Military Justice (UCMJ) offenses: rape, sexual assault, aggravated 
sexual contact, abusive sexual contact, forcible sodomy, or attempts 
to commit these acts. 

[2] Department of Defense, Department of Defense Annual Report on 
Sexual Assault in the Military: Fiscal Year 2013 (Apr. 22, 2014). This 
is the most recent data available from DOD regarding reported 
allegations of sexual assault. 

[3] DOD uses the Workplace and Gender Relations Survey of Active Duty 
Members to estimate the past year prevalence of unwanted sexual 
contact among active duty servicemembers. Although the survey term 
"unwanted sexual contact" does not appear in the UCMJ, it is used as 
an umbrella term intended to include certain acts prohibited by the 
UCMJ, which range from penetrating crimes, such as rape, to 
nonpenetrating crimes, such as abusive sexual contact. Survey 
respondents who indicated they experienced unwanted sexual contact 
were then asked to provide details of the one experience that had the 
greatest effect, including the location of where that situation 
occurred. The Defense Manpower Data Center has administered the survey 
on a regular basis since 1995, and the 2012 survey is the most recent 
data available from DOD regarding unwanted sexual contact. These 
estimates have a margin of error at the 95 percent confidence level of 
less than 1 percentage point. 

[4] Basic training is the first introduction to the military for each 
of the services and includes instruction for new recruits on order and 
discipline, practices and procedures in their specific military 
services, combat preparedness, as well as instruction to enable new 
recruits to meet service-specific fitness requirements. 

[5] Department of Defense Directive 1350.2, Department of Defense 
Military Equal Opportunity (MEO) Program, (Aug.18, 1995) 
(incorporating change May 7, 1997), defines sexual harassment as a 
form of sex discrimination that involves unwelcome sexual advances, 
requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a 
sexual nature when submission to such conduct is made either 
explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of a person's job, pay, 
or career; is used as a basis for career or employment decisions 
affecting that person; or unreasonably interferes with an individual's 
work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive 
working environment. 

[6] The UCMJ prohibits fraternization between officer and enlisted 
personnel, and each military department has regulations prohibiting 
unprofessional relationships between superiors and their subordinates, 
such as between instructors and recruits, and could include physical 
contact or nonphysical contact, such as contact through social media. 
In August 2013, the Secretary of Defense ordered a review to ensure 
that current policies prohibiting inappropriate relationships between 
recruiters and recruits and trainers and trainees are consistent 
across the military services. The fiscal year 2013 DOD Annual Report 
on Sexual Assault in the Military states that the Office of the Deputy 
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Personnel Policy and 
Readiness reviewed the pertinent policies, and they were found to be 
similar in most aspects but varied in terminology, level of 
responsibility, and the specificity with which prohibited actions are 
identified. In response, DOD plans to draft policy in fiscal year 2014 
that addresses the gaps and inconsistencies identified. 

[7] "Initial military training" is used by DOD to describe basic 
training and subsequent career-specific training that occurs after 
basic training. Subsequent career-specific training is referred to by 
different names across the service; the Air Force calls it Technical 
Training; the Army calls it Advanced Individual Training, the Navy 
calls it A School, and the Marine Corps calls it Military Occupational 
Specialty training. 

[8] Department of the Air Force, Developing America's Airmen: A Review 
of Air Force Enlisted Training (September 2012). 

[9] These estimates have a margin of error at the 95 percent 
confidence level of 6 percentage points or fewer. 

[10] These estimates have a margin of error at the 95 percent 
confidence level of 16 percentage points or fewer. 

[11] We also made recommendations to the Coast Guard. See GAO, 
Military Personnel: DOD's and the Coast Guard's Sexual Assault 
Prevention and Response Programs Face Implementation and Oversight 
Challenges, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-924] 
(Washington, D.C.: Aug. 29, 2008). 

[12] GAO, Military Personnel: Additional Actions Are Needed to 
Strengthen DOD's and the Coast Guard's Sexual Assault Prevention and 
Response Programs, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-215] 
(Washington, D.C.: Feb. 3, 2010). 

[13] See H. Rep. No. 113-102 (June 7, 2013) accompanying H.R. 1960, a 
proposed bill for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 
Year 2014. 

[14] For the purposes of this report, we define institutionalized 
changes as those that have a clear method for being sustained beyond 
leadership changes, such as through formalized policy and procedural 
changes. Our prior work found that organizational change and 
transformation can take 5 to 7 years. An organizational change such as 
addressing weaknesses within the Air Force's basic training to better 
prevent sexual assault may take several years to complete. 
Institutionalizing changes in policy or procedures may be necessary to 
sustain those changes beyond leadership turnover, which occurs 
frequently within the military, such as every 2 years in many 
positions. See GAO, Results-Oriented Cultures: Implementation Steps to 
Assist Mergers and Organizational Transformations, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-669] (Washington, D.C.: July 2, 
2003). We did not assess whether these recommendations should be 
implemented, but assessed if the Air Force took actions that addressed 
the findings and resulting recommendation from the Commander's report. 

[15] In 2002, we convened a forum of public and private sector senior 
leaders and academics to identify useful practices and lessons learned 
from organizational change and transformations, and we subsequently 
reported the key practices that were consistently identified from 
successful organizational changes and transformations. These key 
practices can be modified to fit the circumstances and conditions that 
are relevant to a particular agency as it transforms its culture to be 
more results oriented. See [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-669] for the key practices for 
organizational transformations. 

[16] We have a body of work that discusses the need for effective 
performance measurement and details the key attributes of successful 
performance measures. A seminal report defines the key attributes of 
successful performance measures that apply to any government program: 
GAO, Tax Administration: IRS Needs to Further Refine Its Tax Filing 
Season Performance Measures, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-143] (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 22, 
2002). Other examples of applying performance measure attributes can 
be found in the following reports: GAO, Missile Defense: Opportunity 
to Refocus on Strengthening Acquisition Management, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-432] (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 26, 
2013); Performance Measurement and Evaluation: Definitions and 
Relationships, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-646SP] 
(Washington, D.C.: May 2011); and Defense Health Care Reform: 
Additional Implementation Details Would Increase Transparency of DOD's 
Plans and Enhance Accountability, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-49] (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 6, 
2013). 

[17] In 2005, we conducted work to identify criteria that can be used 
to help enhance and sustain collaboration between federal agencies; 
specifically, we reviewed the relevant literature, including our prior 
reports, and interviewed experts in the area of collaboration. On the 
basis of these sources, we identified eight broad practices that can 
facilitate greater collaboration among federal agencies. See GAO, 
Results-Oriented Government: Practices That Can Help Enhance and 
Sustain Collaboration among Federal Agencies, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15] (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 21, 
2005). 

[18] We visited Lackland Air Force Base and Naval Station Great Lakes 
as these locations are the only enlisted basic training locations in 
the Air Force and Navy, respectively. We selected Fort Jackson because 
it is the largest of the four enlisted Army basic training locations 
and one of the locations that trains both female and male Army 
recruits. The Marine Corps has two enlisted basic training locations, 
and we selected Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island because it is 
the only location that trains both female and male Marine Corps 
recruits. 

[19] We relied on command leadership to identify officials such as 
victim advocates or military training instructors for our interviews, 
which may result in limitations as we did not meet with all 
individuals performing these functions. For our interviews with Army, 
Marine Corps, and Navy recruits, we asked command leadership to select 
groups of 10 to 15 male recruits and 10 to 15 female recruits, and we 
met with male and female groups separately. Command leadership in 
various locations used different methods to randomly select recruits, 
including selecting recruits based on last digits of Social Security 
numbers and asking for volunteers for an unknown task or duty. While 
the results of these interviews are not generalizable, they provided 
perspectives on basic training. At Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland Air 
Force Base, we met with a group of 8 recruits that included both male 
and female recruits who volunteered for an unknown task or duty. 

[20] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15] details 
criteria that can be used to help enhance and sustain collaboration 
between federal agencies. GAO, 2014 Annual Report: Additional 
Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and 
Achieve Other Financial Benefits, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-343SP] (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 8, 
2014), identifies government programs that exhibit ineffective or 
inefficient outcomes or results because of fragmentation, overlap, and 
duplication and suggests strategies agencies can pursue to improve 
effectiveness and increase efficiencies. 

[21] We assessed the reliability of the high-level data presented in 
DOD's annual report on sexual assault in the military that includes 
data from DOD's Workplace and Gender Relations Survey of Active Duty 
Members from the Defense Manpower Data Center, and we determined that 
high-level data elements were sufficiently reliable for the purposes 
of this report, such as a discussion of the percentage of active duty 
servicemembers who report that they experienced unwanted sexual 
contact during initial military training. 

[22] The title of these instructors varies by service: the Air Force 
refers to these instructors as military training instructors, the Army 
refers to its instructors as drill sergeants, the Navy refers to them 
as recruit division commanders, and the Marine Corps refers to them as 
drill instructors. 

[23] DOD Directive 6495.01, Sexual Assault Prevention and Response 
(SAPR) Program, DOD Directive 6495.01, (Jan. 23, 2012). 

[24] DOD Directive 6495.01. 

[25] DOD Directive 6495.01. 

[26] DOD Instruction 6495.02, enc. 4, details certain exceptions that 
authorize disclosure of confidential communications in restricted 
reports, such as those incidents when disclosure is authorized in 
writing by the victim; necessary to prevent or mitigate a serious and 
imminent threat to the health or safety of the victim or another 
person; or ordered by a military official (e.g., a duly authorized 
trial counsel subpoena in a UCMJ case), federal or state judge, or as 
required by a federal or state statute or applicable U.S. 
international agreement. 

[27] Estimates were derived from the 2012 Workplace and Gender 
Relations Survey of Active Duty Members and have a margin of error at 
the 95 percent confidence level of 6 percentage points or fewer. 

[28] Estimates have a margin of error at the 95 percent confidence 
level of 17 percentage points or fewer. 

[29] DOD Directive 1350.2. 

[30] DOD Directive 1350.2. 

[31] GAO, Preventing Sexual Harassment: DOD Needs Greater Leadership 
Commitment and an Oversight Framework, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-809] (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 21, 
2011). 

[32] Airman Leadership School is a 5-week Air Force program that is 
designed to develop airmen into effective frontline supervisors and 
focuses on leadership abilities, the profession of arms, and building 
effective communication. 

[33] Department of the Air Force, Air Education and Training Command, 
Order to Report Allegations of Military Training Instructor (MTI), 
Military Training Leader (MTL), and Instructor Misconduct, Memorandum 
(Sept. 17, 2012); Department of the Air Force, Headquarters, 2nd Air 
Force (Air Education and Training Command), 2nd Air Force, Standards 
of Conduct and Training, Guidance Memorandum 36-01 (Sept. 17, 2013); 
and Department of the Air Force, Air Education and Training Command, 
Recruiting, Education, and Training Standards of Conduct, AETC 
Instruction 36-2909 (Dec. 2, 2013). 

[34] Department of the Air Force, 737th Training Group (Air Education 
and Training Command), 737 TRG Operating Instruction 36-3 (Dec. 28, 
2012). 

[35] For the purposes of this report, we define institutionalized 
changes as those that have a clear method for being sustained beyond 
leadership changes, such as through formalized policy and procedural 
changes. An organizational change such as addressing weaknesses within 
the Air Force's basic training to better prevent sexual assault may 
take several years to complete. Institutionalizing changes in policy 
or procedures may be necessary to sustain those changes beyond 
leadership turnover, which occurs frequently within the military, such 
as every 2 years in many positions. Our prior work found that 
organizational change and transformation can take 5 to 7 years. See 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-669]. 

[36] In 2002, we convened a forum of public and private sector senior 
leaders and academics to identify useful practices and lessons learned 
from organizational change and transformations, and we subsequently 
reported the key practices that were consistently identified from 
successful organizational changes and transformations. These key 
practices can be modified to fit the circumstances and conditions that 
are relevant to a particular agency as it transforms its culture to be 
more results oriented. See [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-669] for the key practices for 
organizational transformations, and for examples of how agency 
programs were reviewed against these key practices, see [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-809] and GAO, Military Personnel: 
Sustained Leadership and Oversight Needed to Improve DOD's Prevention 
and Treatment of Domestic Abuse, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-923] (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 22, 
2010). 

[37] Following the publication of the Commander's 2012 report, the 
Commander of the Air Education and Training Command then issued 
another report in November 2012 addressing the deficiencies outlined 
in the September 2012 Commander's report. 

[38] See [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-669] for the 
key practices for organizational transformations, such as the 
implementation of a results-oriented framework with clearly 
established performance goals and measures. 

[39] We have used the above criteria in other reports. See, for 
example, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-49], which 
also included criteria for performance measurement from GAO, Aviation 
Weather: Agencies Need to Improve Performance Measurement and Fully 
Address Key Challenges, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-843] (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 9, 
2010); Department of the Navy, Office of the Chief Information 
Officer, Guide for Developing and Using Information Technology (IT) 
Performance Measurements (Washington, D.C.: October 2001); and General 
Services Administration, Office of Governmentwide Policy, Performance-
Based Management: Eight Steps To Develop and Use Information 
Technology Performance Measures Effectively (Washington, D.C.: 1996). 

[40] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-669].  

[41] GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1] 
(Washington, D.C.: November 1999). 

[42] See [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-669] and 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-143]. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-143] identifies key attributes of 
successful performance measures that apply to any government program. 

[43] Department of Defense, Department of Defense Annual Report on 
Sexual Assault in the Military: Fiscal Year 2012 (May 3, 2013). 

[44] Department of Defense, Department of Defense Annual Report on 
Sexual Assault in the Military: Fiscal Year 2013, (Apr. 22, 2014). 

[45] Memorandum of Understanding between the Commander 2nd Air Force; 
the Deputy Commanding General, Initial Military Training Center of 
Excellence; the Commander, Force Readiness Command; and the Commander, 
Naval Service Training Command, Council on Recruit Basic Training 
(CORBT) Charter (Draft). 

[46] In 2005, we conducted work to identify criteria that can be used 
to assess collaboration between federal agencies. We identified eight 
key practices that can help federal agencies enhance and sustain their 
collaborative efforts. See [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15]. 

[47] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15]. 

[48] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-669]. 

[49] Army officials stated that the Department of the Army is the only 
service that has combined its programs for preventing and responding 
to both sexual assault and sexual harassment into one office, the 
Army's Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention Office. 

[50] See GAO, Telecommunications: GSA Needs to Share and Prioritize 
Lessons Learned to Avoid Future Transition Delays, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-63] (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 5, 
2013).This report identifies six key practices to help validate 
practices for sharing lessons learned as these lessons provide a 
powerful method of sharing ideas for improving work processes, 
quality, and cost-effectiveness. The key practices were identified 
primarily using GAO, NASA: Better Mechanisms Needed for Sharing 
Lessons Learned, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-02-195] 
(Washington, D.C.: Jan. 30, 2002), and Center for Army Lessons 
Learned, Establishing a Lessons Learned Program: Observations, 
Insights, and Lessons (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: June 2011). 

[51] Secretary of Defense, Prevention and Reporting of Sexual Assault 
and Other Misconduct in Initial Military Training (Sept. 25, 2012). 

[52] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-63]. 

[53] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1]. 

[54] These estimates have a margin of error at the 95 percent 
confidence level of 6 percentage points or fewer. 

[55] Pub. L. No. 112-239, § 572, 126 Stat. 1753 (Jan. 2, 2013), as 
amended by Pub. L. No. 113-66, § 1721, 127 Stat. 970 (Dec. 26, 2013), 
codified at 10 USC § 1561 (note). 

[56] These ranks and age ranges would also include enlisted personnel 
assigned to the operating forces, and several DOD officials stated 
during the course of our review that sexual assaults are a concern at 
the first duty station of enlisted personnel; however, the scope of 
our review was limited to initial military training. Applicants to 
enlist in the armed forces must have signed parental consent prior to 
age 18. 

[57] Department of the Navy, Recruit Training Command, Procedure for 
Administering, Routing, and Responding to Recruit Academic Test 
Critiques, Recruit Training Command Instruction 1230.1B (June 21, 
2011). 

[58] Report of the Response Systems to Adult Sexual Assault Crimes 
Panel (June 2014). 

[59] Lackland Air Force Base is the only enlisted basic military 
training facility within the Air Force, and Randolph Air Force Base is 
the headquarters of the Air Education and Training Command. 

[60] For the purposes of this report, we define institutionalized 
changes as those that have a clear method for being sustained beyond 
leadership changes, such as through formalized policy and procedural 
changes. Our prior work found that organizational change and 
transformation can take 5 to 7 years. An organizational change such as 
addressing weaknesses within the Air Force's basic training to better 
prevent sexual assault may take several years to complete. 
Institutionalizing changes in policy or procedures may be necessary to 
sustain those changes beyond leadership turnover, which occurs 
frequently within the military, such as every 2 years in many 
positions. See GAO, Results-Oriented Cultures: Implementation Steps to 
Assist Mergers and Organizational Transformations, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-669] (Washington, D.C.: July 2, 
2003). We did not assess whether these recommendations should be 
implemented, but assessed if the Air Force took actions that addressed 
the findings and resulting recommendations from the Commander's report. 

[61] In 2002, we convened a forum of public and private sector senior 
leaders and academics to identify useful practices and lessons learned 
from organizational change and transformations, and we subsequently 
reported the key practices that were consistently identified from 
successful organizational changes and transformations. These key 
practices can be modified to fit the circumstances and conditions that 
are relevant to a particular agency as it transforms its culture to be 
more results oriented. See [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-669] for the key practices for 
organizational transformations. 

[62] We have a body of work that discusses the need for effective 
performance measurement and details the key attributes of successful 
performance measures. A seminal report defines the key attributes of 
successful performance measures that apply to any government program: 
GAO, Tax Administration: IRS Needs to Further Refine Its Tax Filing 
Season Performance Measures, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-143] (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 22, 
2002). Other examples of applying performance measure attributes can 
be found in the following reports: GAO, Missile Defense: Opportunity 
to Refocus on Strengthening Acquisition Management, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-432] (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 26, 
2013); Performance Measurement and Evaluation: Definitions and 
Relationships, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-646SP] 
(Washington, D.C.: May 2011); and Defense Health Care Reform: 
Additional Implementation Details Would Increase Transparency of DOD's 
Plans and Enhance Accountability, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-49] (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 6, 
2013). 

[63] In 2005, we conducted work to identify criteria that can be used 
to assess collaboration between federal agencies. We identified eight 
key practices that can help federal agencies enhance and sustain their 
collaborative efforts. See GAO, Results-Oriented Government: Practices 
That Can Help Enhance and Sustain Collaboration among Federal 
Agencies, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15] 
(Washington, D.C.: Oct. 21, 2005). 

[64] We visited Lackland Air Force Base and Naval Station Great Lakes 
as these locations are the only enlisted basic training locations in 
the Air Force and Navy, respectively. We selected Fort Jackson because 
it is the largest of the four enlisted Army basic training locations 
and one of the locations that trains both female and male Army 
recruits. The Marine Corps has two enlisted basic training locations, 
and we selected Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island because it is 
the only location that trains both female and male Marine Corps 
recruits. 

[65] An installation will often have numerous individuals who serve as 
victim advocates or military training instructors; therefore, for 
interviews with such officials we relied on command leadership to 
identify officials for our interviews, which may result in limitations 
since we did not meet with all individuals performing these functions. 
For our interviews with Army, Marine Corps, and Navy recruits, we 
asked command leadership to randomly select groups of 10 to 15 male 
recruits and 10 to 15 female recruits, and we met with male and female 
groups separately. Command leadership in various locations used 
different methods to select recruits, including selecting recruits 
based on last digits of Social Security numbers and asking for 
volunteers for an unknown task or duty. While the results of these 
interviews are not generalizable, they provided perspectives on basic 
training. At Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland Air Force Base, we met 
with a group of 8 recruits that included both male and female recruits 
who volunteered for an unknown task or duty. 

[66] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15] details 
criteria that can be used to help enhance and sustain collaboration 
between federal agencies. GAO, 2014 Annual Report: Additional 
Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and 
Achieve Other Financial Benefits, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-343SP] (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 8, 
2014), identifies government programs that exhibit ineffective or 
inefficient outcomes or results because of fragmentation, overlap, and 
duplication and suggests strategies agencies can pursue to improve 
effectiveness and increase efficiencies. 

[67] GAO, Military Personnel: DOD's and the Coast Guard's Sexual 
Assault Prevention and Response Programs Face Implementation and 
Oversight Challenges, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-924] (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 29, 
2008), and Military Personnel: Additional Actions Are Needed to 
Strengthen DOD's and the Coast Guard's Sexual Assault Prevention and 
Response Programs, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-215] 
(Washington, D.C.: Feb. 3, 2010). 

[End of section] 

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