From Rep. Pete Stark press release:
GAO REPORT FINDS SIGNIFICANT INCREASES IN MILITARY RECRUITING VIOLATIONS
Department of Defense and services lack framework for monitoring wrongdoing
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A new GAO report released today by Representatives Pete Stark (CA-13) and Vic Snyder (AR-2) finds significant increases in the number of alleged, substantiated, and criminal violations by military recruiters. The report also finds that the Department of Defense and individual services lack a framework for accounting for recruiting violations. According to GAO, DOD is “not in a sound position to assure the general public that it knows the full extent to which recruiter irregularities are occurring.” This is the third GAO report to make similar findings.
"America deserves better than a ‘don't ask, don't tell’ policy for military recruiting violations," said Stark. "The Department of Defense has twice ignored GAO recommendations on how best to account for and limit recruiters' violations. This third inquiry confirms the two prior reports' findings and demands immediate action. Rather than tolerate drastic increases in recruiting violations, the military should take overdue steps to enforce its own Code of Justice.
“Our all-volunteer military depends on successfully recruiting quality people. The GAO conclusions point once again to the need for continued Congressional oversight by the House Armed Services Committee," said Snyder, Ranking Member of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel.
Specifically, GAO finds:
· Between fiscal years 2004 and 2005, allegations of recruiter wrongdoing increased by 50%, substantiated cases increased by more than 50%, and criminal violations, such as sexual harassment and falsifying documents, increased by more than 100%. These are conservative estimates as GAO also finds that because the services fail to track all allegations of recruiter wrongdoing, “service data likely underestimate the true number of recruiter irregularities.”
· Nearly five percent of non-supervisory recruiters would have been found to have committed a substantiated violation – if each recruiter who committed a violation in fiscal year 2005 had committed only a single violation.
· DOD has not established oversight guidelines requiring the services to maintain and report data on recruiter violations. As a result, the services use multiple, decentralized, and non-integrated systems for identifying and tracking violations.
In January 1997 and January 1998, GAO analyzed the recruiting and screening process for enlisted personnel. In both reports, GAO similarly concluded that DOD should improve performance and reduce violations by linking recruiter rewards and incentives to recruits’ successful completion of basic training rather than the number of contracts written for applicants. At present, the Marine Corps is the only service that uses basic training attrition rates as a key component of a recruiter’s evaluation. The new GAO report affirms the efficacy of such an approach, finding Marine Corps recruits to have lower attrition rates before entering basic training than applicants to the Army, Navy, and Air Force.
The GAO report is available at: http://www.house.gov/stark/news/109th/pressreleases/gaorecruitingreport.pdf