113 HR 2230 IH: Track It to Prevent It Act
U.S. House of Representatives
2013-06-03
text/xml
EN
Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain.
1.Short title; table of
contents
(a)This Act may be cited
as the Track It to Prevent It
Act
.
(b)The table of contents for this Act is as follows:
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. Findings.
Sec. 3. Definitions.
Sec. 4. Improved climate assessments and dissemination and
tracking of results.
Sec. 5. Inclusion of letter of reprimands, nonpunitive letter
of reprimands and counseling statements.
Sec. 6. Service-wide 360 assessments.
Sec. 7. Health welfare inspections.
Sec. 8. Review of security of military installations, including
barracks and multi-family residences.
Sec. 9. Review of the Office of Diversity Management and Equal
Opportunity role in sexual harassment cases.
Sec. 10. Authorization of appropriations.
2.Congress makes the following
findings:
(1)According to the Department of Defense,
3,374 sexual assault cases involving a member of the Armed Forces were reported
in fiscal year 2012, a 6 percent increase in the number of reported cases in
fiscal year 2011.
(2)However, approximately 26,000 members of
the Armed Forces made an anonymous report of a sexual assault in fiscal year
2012, a substantial increase from fiscal year 2011.
(3)According to the Department of Defense, of
the 6.1 percent of female members of the Armed Forces who experienced
unwanted sexual contact in fiscal year 2012, 77 percent also
experienced sexual harassment and, of the 1.2 percent of male members of the
Armed Forces who experienced unwanted sexual contact in fiscal
year 2012, 52 percent also experienced sexual harassment.
(4)Sixty-two percent
of those members who experienced unwanted sexual contact also perceived some
form of social, administrative, or professional retaliation.
(5)Climate
assessments are required by law and commanders at all levels must comply as it
is their core responsibility to create a safe and healthy environment for the
unit.
(6)Trends in bad
behavior and reoccurring actions that harm the members of the unit, such as
sexual harassment and sexual assault, must be identified earlier through
improved performance assessments and better reporting by commanders at all
levels.
(7)According to a recent Government
Accountability Office report, two of the primary reasons why members decide not
to report sexual harassment and sexual assault incidents are because they do
not think anything will be done about the incident if they report it and they
think that reporting the incident will adversely impact their military
career.
(8)As long as
commanders at any level continue to condone or ignore certain types of sexual
misconduct, this behavior will continue to be prevalent in the military
obstructing the change in culture.
3.In this Act
(1)The term
sexual harassment has the meaning given such term in Department of
Defense Directive 1350.2, Department of Defense Military Equal Opportunity
Program.
(2)The term
sexual assault means any of the offenses described in section 920
of title 10, United States Code (article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military
Justice).
4. Improved climate
assessments and dissemination and tracking of results
(a)Improved
dissemination of results in chain of commandThe Secretary of Defense shall ensure that
the results of command climate assessments are provided to the relevant
individual commander and to the next higher level of command.
(b)
(1)The Secretary of
each military department shall include in the performance evaluations and
assessments used by each Armed Force under the jurisdiction of the Secretary a
designated form where senior commanders can indicate whether the commander has
conducted the required climate assessments.
(2)Effect of
failure to conduct assessmentIf a commander is found to not have
conducted the required climate assessments, the failure shall be noted in the
commander’s performance evaluation and be considered a serious factor during
consideration for any subsequent promotion.
(c)The Inspector General of the Department of Defense shall
develop a system to track whether commanders are conducting command climate
assessments.
(d)Working with the
Inspector General of the Department of Defense, unit commanders shall gather
all the climate assessments from the unit and develop a compliance report that,
at a minimum, shall include the following:
(1)A
comprehensive overview of the concerns members of the unit expressed in the
climate assessments.
(2)Data showing how
leadership is perceived in the unit.
(3)A
detailed strategic plan on how leadership plans to address the expressed
concerns.
5.Inclusion of
letter of reprimands, nonpunitive letter of reprimands and counseling
statementsThe Secretary of
Defense shall require commanders to include letter of reprimands, nonpunitive
letter of actions and counseling statements involving substantiated cases of
sexual harassment or sexual assault in the performance evaluation report of a
member of the Armed Forces for the purpose of—
(1)providing
commanders increased visibility of the background information of members of the
unit;
(2)identifying and
preventing trends of bad behavior early and effectively disciplining repeated
actions which hinder units from fostering a healthy climate; and
(3)preventing the
transfer of sexual offenders.
6.Service-wide 360
assessments
(a)Adoption of
360-Degree approachThe
Secretary of each military department shall develop an assessment program
modeled after the current Department of the Army Multi-Source Assessment and
Feedback (MSAF) Program, known in this section as the 360-degree
approach
.
(b)Report on
inclusion in performance evaluation reportsNot later than 90 days after the date of
the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to Congress a
report containing the results of an assessment of the feasibility of including
the 360-degree approach as part of the performance evaluation reports.
(c)The Secretary of
each military department shall include individual counseling as part of the
performance evaluation process.
7.Health welfare
inspectionsThe Secretary of
each military department shall conduct health welfare inspections on a monthly
basis in order to ensure and maintain security, military readiness, good order,
and discipline of all units of the Armed Forces under the jurisdiction of the
Secretary. Results of the Health Welfare Inspections shall be provided to both
the commander and senior commander.
8.Review of
security of military installations, including barracks and multi-family
residences
(a)Review of
security measuresThe Secretary of Defense shall conduct a review
of security measures on United States military installations, specifically with
regard to barracks and multi-family residences on military installations, for
the purpose of ensuring the safety of members of the Armed Forces and their
dependents who reside on military installations.
(b)In conducting the review under subsection (a), the
Secretary of Defense shall—
(1)identify security
gaps on military installations; and
(2)evaluate the
feasibility and effectiveness of using 24-hour electronic monitoring or placing
security personnel at all points of entry into barracks and multi-family
residences on military installation.
(c)Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of
this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to Congress a report containing
the results of the study conducted under subsection (a), including an estimate
of the costs—
(1)to eliminate all
security gaps identified under subsection (b)(1); and
(2)to provide 24-hour security monitoring as
evaluated under subsection (b)(2).
9.Review of the
Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity role in sexual harassment
cases
(a)The Secretary of Defense shall conduct a review of the
Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity for the purposes specified
in subsection (b).
(b)In conducting the review under subsection (a), the
Secretary of Defense shall—
(1)identify and
evaluate the resource and personnel gaps in the Office;
(2)identify and
evaluate the role of the Office in sexual harassment cases; and
(3)evaluate how the
Office works with the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office to address
sexual harassment in the Armed Forces.
10.Authorization of
appropriationsThere are
authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary of Defense such sums as may be
necessary to carry out this Act for fiscal year 2014.