Sexual Assault: Better Resource Management Needed to Improve Prevention and Response in the Army National Guard and Army Reserve
GAO-17-217
Published: Feb 27, 2017. Publicly Released: Feb 27, 2017.
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Highlights
What GAO Found
The Army National Guard (Guard) and Army Reserve (Reserve) have implemented sexual assault prevention and response programs, but face challenges in areas such as staffing, budget management, and investigation timeliness that may hinder program implementation.
- Staffing: The Guard and the Reserve have staffed their sexual assault prevention and response programs, but their use of full-time and collateral-duty personnel has produced sizeable workload disparities. For example, the Guard allots two full-time staff to each state and territory, which provides Rhode Island—a state with about 2,000 soldiers—the same number of staff as Texas, which has about 18,600 soldiers. Similar imbalances exist in the Reserve, with one full-time staff at one command responsible for about 9,000 soldiers located in 16 different states, while the one full-time staff member at another command is responsible for 300 soldiers in 4 states. Officials said that collateral-duty personnel are used to mitigate workload disparities, but these positions are not always filled in the Guard, and the Reserve does not know the number filled. Without evaluating their staffing structures, the Army does not know the extent of such issues and their effect.
- Budget Management: The Guard has developed budget guidance on the use of funds but has not effectively communicated it to program staff, and the Reserve has not developed or distributed this guidance to its staff. Thus, Guard and Reserve program staff do not have information needed to develop their budget allocations and help ensure the efficient use of program funds.
- Investigation Timeliness: Data on Guard cases investigated by its Office of Complex Administrative Investigations (OCI) in fiscal year 2015 show that 57 percent, or 45 of 79 cases, took 6 to 9 months to complete; 39 percent, or 31 of 79 cases, took 3 to 6 months; and the remaining 4 percent (3 of 79 cases) took longer than 9 months. According to OCI officials, investigations take longer to complete because OCI does not have enough personnel to handle its growing caseload, which more than doubled from 2014 to 2015. The Army and the Guard have not reassessed OCI's resources since the increase in investigation requests to help ensure it has the staff needed to complete investigations within 3 weeks, as required by OCI guidance.
Eligibility for follow-up or long-term health-care services paid for or provided by the Department of Defense (DOD) varies based on a Guard or Reserve victim's duty status at the time of an assault. Victims in the Guard and Reserve must go through a process, known as a line of duty determination, to determine their eligibility for care. The Guard has established an expedited process for making a determination within 72 hours of the process being initiated. However, the Reserve's process is lengthy, and in prior work GAO found that 80 percent of these determinations were overdue. Reserve officials said they plan to include an expedited process in the new Army regulation that is being drafted; however, Reserve officials did not provide details about the planned process or documentation about how it would be implemented. Without an expedited process to provide more timely decisions, sexual assault victims in the Reserve may continue to pay for their care up front, or else face delayed access to care.
Why GAO Did This Study
Sexual assault in the Army is often discussed in terms of its incidence among active-duty forces. Sexual assault is a crime that similarly confronts the more than 550,000 members who collectively serve in the Guard and Reserve, who together reported 604 sexual assault incidents in fiscal year 2015; however, sexual assault is generally an underreported crime. Congress included a provision in statute for GAO to review sexual assault prevention and response in the Army's reserve components.
This report addresses the extent to which (1) the Guard and Reserve face any challenges implementing programs to prevent and respond to sexual assault; and (2) medical and mental health-care services are available to victims in the Guard and Reserve. GAO reviewed DOD and Army policies; administered two web-based surveys; conducted site visits to four installations; and interviewed officials.
Recommendations
GAO is making six recommendations, including that DOD evaluate program staffing structure, communicate and develop budget guidance, assess the Guard's investigation timeliness and resources, and develop an expedited process for determining Reserve eligibility for healthcare services. DOD concurred with three recommendations partially concurred with two, and did not concur with assessing Guard investigation timeliness, stating that the Army has limited authority over OCI. GAO continues to believe that actions are needed to fully address the two recommendations, and redirected the OCI recommendation to the Guard, as recommended by DOD.
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Defense | To help ensure that program staff are being used in an effective and efficient manner, and to facilitate the consideration and identification of total force solutions for staffing sexual assault prevention and response and Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention (SHARP) programs throughout the Department of the Army, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Army, in coordination with the Chiefs of the National Guard Bureau and the Army Reserve, to conduct an evaluation of staffing approaches used to administer the sexual assault prevention and response program, and consider opportunities to leverage resources across all Army components. This evaluation should include an assessment of the number and allocation of full-time and collateral-duty personnel, the fill rates for program positions, and the types of positions used. |
DOD concurred with this recommendation in written comments on our report. According to Army officials, in June 2017, the Army SHARP Program Office coordinated with the Center for Army Analysis to initiate a study to assess the requirements and capabilities of SHARP personal across the Army. In April 2019, the Center for Army Analysis issued a report that contained the results of their assessment of the requirements and capabilities of SHARP personnel, which included a comparison of the minimal and current mix of SHARP personnel and an examination of resources and program capabilities across all Army components. Objectives of the assessment included comparing service-line and program-line capabilities against workload to identify overlaps and gaps, providing a minimal, acceptable, and ideal mix of SHARP personnel and providing recommendations for potential program or process changes to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the overall SHARP program. The report found that there was a 77 percent fill rate for the total authorizations for the SHARP program. Further, it found that all Army components had areas with no full-time credentialed service-line coverage, high workloads, or both, and that the lack of coverage showed that that there are an inadequate number of full-time SHARP personnel and collateral duty military SHARP personnel who are assigned to serve in this capacity without diminishing their ability to perform the responsibilities of their primary position. The report included several recommendations, including for revisions to SHARP policy for manpower requirements to focus on unit size, mission and location, and speeding the process for bringing on and credentialing personnel. By implementing our recommendation, the Department of the Army is better positioned to understand workload and potential gaps and resourcing tradeoffs, and now has more comprehensive information necessary to develop and support future resource requests.
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| Department of Defense | To help ensure that Army National Guard and Army Reserve program staff have the necessary information to develop their budgets and to help ensure the efficient and effective use of program funds, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Army to direct the Army National Guard SHARP Program Office to communicate and disseminate its guidance on budget development and execution for the SHARP program to all full-time SHARP program personnel. |
DOD concurred with this recommendation in written comments on our report. On October 3, 2017, the Army National Guard issued its fiscal year 2018 funding guidance for the soldier and family support division, which included resource guidance for the SHARP program. Army officials stated that this guidance was distributed via email to all full-time SHARP personnel on October 10, 2017. In addition, the officials said that the guidance was also uploaded to the Army National Guard's intranet. By implementing our recommendation, Army National Guard SHARP personnel should have the necessary information to develop their budgets and to help ensure the efficient and effective use of program funds.
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| Department of Defense | To help ensure that Army National Guard and Army Reserve program staff have the necessary information to develop their budgets and to help ensure the efficient and effective use of program funds, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Army to direct the Army Reserve SHARP Program Office to develop clear guidance on budget development and execution for the SHARP program and disseminate this guidance to its full-time SHARP program personnel. |
DOD concurred with this recommendation in written comments on our report. On December 10, 2017, the Army Reserve Command issued SHARP Budget Standard Operating Procedures. This guidance was intended to provide guidance needed to facilitate fiscal budget development, and spend plan development and management, to ensure the efficient and effective use of program funds. The guidance provides a template and guidance for developing spend plans, and includes funding guidance that describes the two types of funds for the program and lists which specific tasks should be accomplished using each type of program funds. According to Army officials, this guidance was distributed to the Army Reserve geographic commands and functional commands on December 15, 2017. By implementing our recommendation, Army Reserve SHARP personnel should have the necessary information to develop their budgets and to help ensure the efficient and effective use of program funds.
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| Department of Defense | To help ensure that Army National Guard and Army Reserve program staff have the necessary information to develop their budgets and to help ensure the efficient and effective use of program funds, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Army to direct the Director of the Army SHARP Program Office to expand the scope of the midyear review to include monitoring and providing oversight of SHARP program expenditures at the Army National Guard state and Army Reserve command level. |
DOD partially concurred with this recommendation in written comments on our report. Specifically, DOD agreed that the Army SHARP Program Office can provide additional oversight of expenditures through the addition of compliance inspections in the SHARP Organization Inspection Plan, but disagreed that it be done by expanding its midyear review-stating that such a change seemed excessive and would indicate a lack of trust in the ability of its organizations to manage and properly execute their resources. The Army SHARP Program Office's Mid-Year Review for both the Army Reserve Command and the Army National Guard now includes monitoring and oversight of SHARP program expenditures. Specifically, the mid-year reviews in fiscal year 2019 included reviews of funds obligated and disbursed at the Army Reserve Command level and the state and territory level for the Army National Guard. By implementing our recommendation, the Department of the Army will improve its ability to make informed budget decisions and to help ensure the appropriate use of program funds.
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| Department of Defense | To help ensure that sexual assault crimes involving Army National Guard members are investigated in a timely manner, with a full investigation of the offense regardless of the reserve component or duty status of the victim, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, in collaboration with the secretaries of the military departments as appropriate, to reassess the Office of Complex Administrative Investigation's (OCI) timeliness and resources to determine how to improve the timeliness of processing sexual assault investigations involving members of the Army National Guard, and identify the resources needed to improve the timeliness of these investigations. |
DOD did not concur with this recommendation in written comments on our report. In its written comments, DOD stated that OCI is a National Guard Bureau organization and the administrative investigations that it conducts are outside the limited scope of authority the Secretary of the Army may exercise over the Army National Guard. As such, DOD suggested that the recommendation be redirected to have the Secretary of Defense direct the Chief, National Guard Bureau to perform this task in collaboration, as necessary, with the Secretary of the Army and Secretary of the Air Force. Senate Report 115-125, which accompanied the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018, included a provision for Chief of the National Guard Bureau to provide a status report on OCI manning and turnover rates. In May 2018, the National Guard submitted its report to Congress on the Official Establishment, Manning, and Turnover Rates of the Office of Complex Administrative Investigations. This report included an assessment of OCI's staffing levels from 2012 through January 2018, and staffing requirements, as well as requests for investigations and backlog of investigations. The report identified some proposed solutions involving legislative changes. By implementing our recommendation, the Army National Guard is better positioned to understand OCI's workload and potential gaps and resourcing tradeoffs, and now has more comprehensive information necessary to develop and support future resource requests.
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| Department of Defense | To help ensure that victims of sexual assault in the Army Reserve have timely access to medical and mental health-care services without having to pay for their care upfront, if they are eligible for care paid for or provided by DOD, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Army to direct the Chief of the Army Reserve to develop and implement an expedited line-of-duty determination process for Army Reserve sexual assault victims, along with a method for tracking the length of time to make the determinations. When developing this process, the Chief should ensure that it allows soldiers who wish to file a confidential or restricted report to go through the determination process without disclosing their circumstances to the chain of command. |
DOD partially concurred with this recommendation in written comments on our report. DOD stated that it agrees the Army Reserve should develop and implement an expedited line of duty process, but added that doing so would not correct or mitigate the challenges of funding behavioral health care for Army Reserve soldiers, particularly those who require coverage for trauma experienced in a non-duty/non-paid status. On October 5, 2017, the Office of the Chief of the Army Reserve issued Army Reserve Line of Duty (LOD) Policy, Procedures, and Investigations. This policy provides guidance to implement the 180-day timeframe for soldiers to request a line of duty determination. The guidance specifies that restricted line of duty determinations may only be processed by Sexual Assault Response Coordinators, and authorizes initial medical care until the line of duty investigation is completed. The guidance further provides for the collection of monthly metrics that include processing times and overdue determinations, and for a review of these monthly metrics by the Office of the Chief of the Army Reserve G-1. In addition, Army Human Resources Command has delegated final approval authority for Army Reserve line of duty determination to Army Reserve Command G-1 staff. According to Army officials, this has drastically reduced the timeline required to complete line of duty determinations. By implementing our recommendation, Army Reserve victims of sexual assault will be able to receive care paid for or provided by DOD in a timely manner.
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Armed forces reservesCrime preventionMental healthMental health care servicesMilitary reserve personnelNational GuardSex crimesSexual abuseSexual harassmentSexual assaults