Military Personnel: Additional Actions Are Needed to Strengthen DOD's and the Coast Guard's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Programs
Highlights
Sexual assault is a crime with negative implications to military readiness and esprit de corps. In response to a congressional request, GAO, in 2008, reviewed Department of Defense (DOD) and U.S. Coast Guard sexual assault prevention and response programs and recommended a number of improvements. GAO was subsequently asked to evaluate the extent to which (1) DOD has addressed GAO's 2008 recommendations and further developed its programs, (2) DOD has established a sexual assault database, and (3) the Coast Guard has addressed GAO's 2008 recommendations and further developed its programs. To do so, GAO analyzed legislative requirements and program guidance, interviewed officials, and compared database implementation efforts to key information technology best practices.
DOD has addressed four of GAO's nine recommendations from 2008 regarding the oversight and implementation of its sexual assault prevention and response programs. For example, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) evaluated department program guidance for joint and deployed environments, and it evaluated factors that may hinder access to health care following a sexual assault. But DOD's efforts to address the other recommendations reflect less progress. For example, GAO recommended that DOD develop an oversight framework, to include long-term goals and milestones, performance goals and strategies, and criteria for measuring progress. However, GAO found that the draft framework lacks 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. Until OSD incorporates all key elements into its draft oversight framework, it will remain limited in its ability to effectively manage program development to help prevent and respond to sexual assault incidents. DOD acknowledges that more work remains in order to fully develop its oversight framework. DOD has taken steps to begin acquiring a centralized sexual assault database. However, it did not meet a legislative requirement to establish the database by January 2010, and it is unclear when the database will be established because DOD does not yet have a reliable schedule to guide its efforts. Also, key system acquisition best practices associated with successfully acquiring and deploying information technology systems, such as economically justifying the proposed system solution and effectively developing and managing requirements, have largely not been performed. OSD officials said they intend to employ these acquisition best practices. Until this is accomplished the program will be at increased risk of not delivering promised mission capabilities and benefits on time and within budget. While the Coast Guard has partially implemented one of GAO's two recommendations for further developing its sexual assault prevention and response program, it has not implemented the other. In June 2009, the Coast Guard began assessing its program staff's workload, which represents progress in addressing GAO's recommendation to evaluate its processes for staffing key installation-level positions in its program. However, it has not addressed GAO's recommendation to develop an oversight framework. Further, the Coast Guard lacks a systematic process for assembling, documenting, and maintaining sexual assault incident data, and lacks quality control procedures to ensure that the program data being collected are reliable. In fiscal year 2008, for example, different Coast Guard offices documented conflicting numbers of sexual assault reports: the Coast Guard Program Office documented 30, while the Investigative Office documented 78. The Coast Guard had to resolve this significant discrepancy before it could provide its data to DOD. Without a systematic process for tracking its data, the Coast Guard lacks reliable knowledge on the occurrence of sexual assaults.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Defense | To improve the management, strategic planning, and comprehensiveness of OSD's oversight of the department's sexual assault prevention and response programs, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to strengthen OSD oversight framework by identifying how the results of performance assessments will be used to guide the development of future program initiatives. | DOD concurred with this recommendation, and in its comments on our report, noted that it had several efforts underway or planned to address these issues. For example, DOD stated that in the early part of 2010, it will have a plan in place that details how it will track its progress toward the performance objectives laid out in the DOD-wide strategic plan, and it will develop a procedure to report back on progress toward objectives and any needed corrective steps. Further, DOD noted that the process it plans to use to track its progress toward performance objectives will also allow the department to synchronize the objectives, timelines, and strategies of its two strategic plans. In March... 2011, DOD provided a sample tracker entry that summarizes the status of various actions in its strategic plan, the planned completion date, and the GAO recommendation to which they correspond. Additionally, in its fiscal year 2011 report on sexual assault in the military, DOD reported that it was using recommendations from DOD's Working Group on Victim Assistance to modify its plan for oversight of sexual assault prevention and response training in 2012. By developing and implementing this tracking mechanism and using recommendations from the working group's assessment to modify future oversight efforts, DOD has implemented the recommendation.
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| Department of Defense | To improve the management, strategic planning, and comprehensiveness of OSD's oversight of the department's sexual assault prevention and response programs, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to strengthen OSD oversight framework by identifying how OSD's program resources correlate to its achievement of strategic program objectives. |
DOD concurred with this recommendation, and in its comments on our report, it noted that starting with the 2012 budget cycle, OSD plans to align its budget categories with specific performance objectives laid out in its strategic plan. In March 2011, DOD provided a table that shows how much they budgeted for different priorities in the DOD-wide strategic plan. By identifying how funding relates to program objectives, DOD has implemented the recommendation.
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| Department of Defense | To improve the management, strategic planning, and comprehensiveness of OSD's oversight of the department's sexual assault prevention and response programs, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to strengthen OSD oversight framework by correlating its oversight framework to the program's two strategic plans so that program objectives, timelines, and strategies for achieving objectives are synchronized. |
DOD concurred with this recommendation, and in its comments on our report, it noted that that the process it plans to use to track its progress toward performance objectives will also allow the department to synchronize the objectives, timelines, and strategies of its two strategic plans. In March 2011, DOD provided a sample tracker entry that summarizes the status of various actions in its strategic plan for sexual assault prevention and response, the planned completion date, to which GAO recommendation it corresponds, etc. By synchronizing the various elements of these two strategic plans, DOD has implemented the recommendation.
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| Department of Defense | To enhance visibility over the incidence of sexual assaults involving DOD servicemembers, the department's sexual assault prevention and response programs, and the pending implementation of the Defense Sexual Assault Incident Database, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to standardize the type, amount, and format of the data in the military services' annual report submissions. | DOD concurred with this recommendation, and in comments on our report,DOD acknowledged that achieving uniformity among the military services for all required data elements will greatly enhance its oversight capabilities. DOD added that it recently established definitions for case disposition data and developed a standardized program report template, and that both are being used by the military services to compile their respective data for the department's fiscal year 2009 report on sexual assault in the military services. DOD added that the comprehensive process of linking all of its data elements will ultimately be accomplished through its development of the Defense Sexual Assault...
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| Department of Defense | To enhance the oversight of the sexual assault prevention and response program in DOD, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to ensure that the development and implementation of the Defense Sexual Assault Incident Database includes adherence to developing a reliable integrated master schedule that addresses the nine key practices discussed in this report. | DOD concurred with this recommendation and in comments on our report it noted DOD stated that it will give priority to developing a reliable integrated master schedule, and will follow GAO schedule estimating guidance. However, it added that while the department has thus far developed schedules that it characterized as capturing broader scope key activities, it would not be able to capture key schedule activities or estimate a timeframe for identifying key activities that are fundamental to developing a reliable schedule until it acquired the assistance of the system development contractor. DOD noted that this is because only the contractor will know the steps and time required to adopt...
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| Department of Defense | To enhance the oversight of the sexual assault prevention and response program in DOD, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to ensure that the development and implementation of the Defense Sexual Assault Incident Database includes adherence to adequately assessing the program's overlap with and duplication of related programs through architecture compliance. | DOD concurred with this recommendation and in comments on our report, DOD acknowledged the benefits derived from assessing the program's overlap with and duplication of related programs. It added, however, that our report inaccurately asserts that DOD has not complied with DOD guidance governing architecture compliance by stating that a complete set of system-level architecture products are not yet available to perform a thorough architecture compliance assessment. In this regard, it stated that DOD guidance does not call for the development of system-level architecture products until the Technology Development Phase in the Defense Acquisition System. In January 2012, we met with SAPRO...
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| Department of Defense | To enhance the oversight of the sexual assault prevention and response program in DOD, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to ensure that the development and implementation of the Defense Sexual Assault Incident Database includes adherence to adequately justifying investment in the proposed approach on the basis of reliable estimates of life cycle costs and benefits. | DOD concurred with this recommendation, and in its comments on our report, DOD agreed that the cost estimate in the existing business case does not account for all life cycle costs and risks. However, it added that DOD guidance does not require comprehensive cost estimates in the business case and that the cost estimate in the business case was derived using cost estimating best practices. In February 2011, OSD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO) provided Congress with a status report on its database development and implementation efforts. In that report, SAPRO noted that DOD had submitted and received approval on an economic justification as required by Milestone A,...
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| Department of Defense | To enhance the oversight of the sexual assault prevention and response program in DOD, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to ensure that the development and implementation of the Defense Sexual Assault Incident Database includes adherence to effectively developing and managing system requirements. | DOD concurred with our recommendation to effectively develop and manage system requirements, and in comments on our report, DOD noted that it has continued to work with the military services in developing system requirements and that its progress in doing so is much greater than our report states. It also noted that since the database was legislated, Congress expanded its annual sexual assault reporting requirements, which in turn necessitated additional requirements development work with stakeholders. Further, it stated that it will institute a Change Control Board, which is a key requirements management control mechanism, and is using a range of system life cycle management tools that...
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| Department of Defense | To enhance the oversight of the sexual assault prevention and response program in DOD, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to ensure that the development and implementation of the Defense Sexual Assault Incident Database includes adherence to adequately testing system capabilities. | DOD concurred with our recommendation to adequately test system capabilities, and in comments on our report, DOD noted that our report does not sufficiently describe its efforts to develop a detailed test plan defining the program's testing approach and strategy, including the entrance and exit criteria for each testing phase. We agreed that our report does not cite the development of this plan because no such plan was provided to us as part of the documentation set submitted for the database's milestone acquisition approval, nor were we made aware of the existence of such a plan. Moreover, program officials told us that a test plan would be developed after the contractor was hired, and...
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| Department of Defense | To enhance the oversight of the sexual assault prevention and response program in DOD, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to ensure that the development and implementation of the Defense Sexual Assault Incident Database includes adherence to effectively managing program risks. | DOD concurred with our recommendation to effectively manage program risks, and in comments on our report, DOD noted that our statement that risk management has yet to begin is incorrect because key risks have been identified. We agreed that risk identification, which is the first step in risk management, had begun, and also agree that the statement in our draft report that risk management has yet to begin is not consistent with its recognition of these risk identification efforts. As a result, we modified the report to note that many aspects of risk management have yet to begin, which DOD also states in its comments on our draft report. In February 2011, OSD's Sexual Assault Prevention...
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| United States Coast Guard | To improve the oversight and accountability of the Coast Guard's sexual assault prevention and response program, the Commandant of the Coast Guard should establish a systematic process for collecting, documenting, and maintaining sexual assault incidence data. | Coast Guard concurred with our recommendation to establish a systematic process for collecting, documenting, and maintaining sexual assault incidence data, and in its comments on our report, the Coast Guard noted that it had several initiatives underway to continue developing its sexual assault prevention and response program. For example, the Coast Guard stated that an electronic database to track sexual assault reports is in the prototype development phase, and based on current progress, it expects to complete the database in 2010. In April 2012, the Coast Guard updated us on the status of its efforts to establish a systematic process for collecting, documenting, and maintaining sexual...
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| United States Coast Guard | To improve the oversight and accountability of the Coast Guard's sexual assault prevention and response program, the Commandant of the Coast Guard should establish quality control processes to ensure that program information collected is valid and reliable. | Coast Guard concurred with this recommendation, and in comments on our report, the Coast Guard noted that it has several initiatives underway to continue developing its sexual assault prevention and response program. For example, the Coast Guard stated that an electronic database to track sexual assault reports, which would help curb quality control issues, is in the prototype development phase, and based on current progress, it expects to complete the database in 2010. In April 2012, the Coast Guard updated the status of their efforts to implement this recommendation. Specifically, the Coast Guard told us that it is establishing protocols for field data entry, which it expects will be...
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| United States Coast Guard | To improve execution of sexual assault prevention and response programs, the Commandant of the Coast Guard should establish and administer a curriculum for all key program personnel to ensure that they can provide proper advice to Coast Guard personnel. | The Coast Guard concurred with this recommendation, and in comments on our report, the Coast Guard noted that it has completed an assessment of workload requirements and resource allocations for its Sexual Assault Response Coordinators, and upon release of the final report, the Coast Guard plans to review and analyze the recommendations and, as appropriate, incorporate additional resource requirements into its annual budget process. In April 2012, the Coast Guard updated the status of its efforts to implement this recommendation. Specifically, the Coast Guard told us that annual sexual assault prevention and response training is required for all Coast Guard personnel, and that a...
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