From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: DOD's Efforts to Combat Domestic Abuse Description: The Department of Defense says that domestic abuse is incompatible with the military's values and reduces military mission readiness. The DOD is required to record and report domestic abuse incidents to Congress to help inform military prevention efforts. But there are concerns about how this information is collected. We talk with GAO's Brenda Farrell to learn more. Related GAO Work: GAO-21-289, Domestic Abuse: Actions Needed to Enhance DOD's Prevention, Response, and Oversight Released: May 2021 [Intro music:] [Brenda Farrell:] This issue of preventing and responding to domestic abuse has had close scrutiny in the past. Much more work is needed. [Holly Hobbs:] Hi and welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office--celebrating 100 years of fact based, nonpartisan government oversight. I'm Holly Hobbs. The Department of Defense says that domestic abuse is incompatible with the military's values and reduces military mission readiness. The DOD is required to record and report domestic abuse incidents to Congress to help inform military prevention efforts. But there are concerns about how this information is collected. Today, we'll talk with Brenda Farrell, a director in our Defense Capabilities and Management Team, who has a new report out on DOD's domestic abuse and prevention oversight efforts. Thank you for joining us, Brenda. [Brenda Farrell:] Thanks for having me. [Holly Hobbs:] So Brenda, domestic abuse isn't just a military issue. Why are we looking specifically at the military? [Brenda Farrell:] Well, you're right, this is not a military issue. This is an issue you find in both the military and the civilian communities. In DOD, domestic abuse is incompatible with military values and it reduces military readiness. So, Congress has been concerned about this issue and has had a longstanding interest over the last 20 years. For example, Congress has put in place a number of reporting requirements for DOD to help oversee the management of this area. And our report we're discussing today examined the extent to which DOD was meeting those statutory requirements, among other things. [Holly Hobbs:] We looked at the number of reported domestic abuse incidents in Fiscal Years 2015 and 2019. What did the data tell us about these incidents? [Brenda Farrell:] Well, by law DOD is required to report domestic abuse data annually to Congress. And we found that during the period we're discussing the military services collected data on over 40,000 incidents that met DOD's criteria for domestic abuse. Of these, 40,000-plus, 74% or physical abuse, that's the largest category; 22% were emotional abuse; 4% were sexual abuse; and less than 1% were neglect. [Holly Hobbs:] And do we know how this compares to the broader public? [Brenda Farrell:] We did not compare the military and the civilian communities. That would be a daunting challenge especially since we found issues within DOD of the data not being consistently submitted amongst the services. [Holly Hobbs:] You mentioned that DOD is required by law to report domestic abuse to Congress. What do we know about their compliance with this requirement? [Brenda Farrell:] Well, we found that DOD has not collected and reported accurate and complete data on the number and type of domestic abuse allegations received as required by law. We found that it's not possible to determine the total number of type of allegations across DOD because the services used different data collection methods. For example, the Army and the Air Force document multiple allegations as a single data record, while the Navy in the Marine Corps document each allegation received as a separate record. And by using this approach, it's not accurate because it effectively results in undercounting the number of allegations received for the Army and the Air Force. And there are a number of other issues that we did fine with the accuracy of the information. [Holly Hobbs:] So, what effect would those data issues have on DOD's prevention and oversight efforts? [Brenda Farrell:] Without clear guidance, DOD lacks reasonable assurance that each service will collect the data in a consistent manner, and that that then will allow them to aggregate the data to see what's going on across the Department. And without a quality control process in place, then they cannot ensure accuracy. So this impacts Congress and DOD having the key information needed to evaluate the effectiveness of DOD's efforts to prevent and respond to incidents of domestic abuse. [Music] [Holly Hobbs:] So, it sounds like the Department of Defense is required to collect and report on domestic abuse incidents that occur in the homes of service members, and that this data is used to inform DOD's prevention efforts. But that there are concerns about the quality of the data. Brenda, did we make any recommendations for DOD to improve its data to better inform its oversight and prevention efforts? [Brenda Farrell:] We did. We made 32 recommendations in this report. The recommendations evolved around clarifying guidance about how these data is submitted, developing a quality control process, increasing awareness of the program so that service members and their dependents know how to report a domestic abuse incident and know where to go for help. There were also recommendations regarding improving training for the commanders and other key personnel responsible for preventing and responding to domestic abuse. DOD does have training, but we found that some of the key topics that were to be covered in the training were not there in some cases. And another key recommendation involved the need to monitor incident screening decisions to make sure that all allegations are screened in accordance with DOD policy to determine if they met DOD criteria. [Holly Hobbs:] And last question, what's the bottom line of this report? [Brenda Farrell:] The bottom line of this report is, even though this issue of preventing and responding to domestic abuse has had close scrutiny in the past, much more work is needed to have visibility over this issue in DOD, and to help determine if DOD's program is effective or in need of change to both prevent and respond to domestic violence. [Holly Hobbs:] That was Brenda Farrell talking about GAO's recent review of the Department of Defense's domestic abuse and prevention efforts. Thank you for your time, Brenda. [Brenda Farrell:] Thank you. 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