Letter to Hon. Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense, US Department of Defense - Ernst, Grassley, Gillibrand Call Out Department Of Defense Timeline To Implement Sexual Assault Reforms

Letter

Dear Secretary Austin,
We write to express our disappointment and concern with the vague approach and lax timeline
the Department of Defense has laid out in its Sept 22, 2021 memo "Commencing DoD Actions
and Implementation to Address Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment in the Military." This
approach does not rise to the challenge of addressing the crippling and endemic sexual assault
crisis afflicting our nation's military. Ensuring the safety of all who serve and delivering justice
for victims of sexual violence are not problems that can wait to be resolved on the Department of
Defense's proposed timeline. The men and women who serve in our military cannot continue to
operate another day, let alone another decade, under a chain of command that is unwilling or
incapable of taking decisive action to address this epidemic. A problem of this magnitude
demands an immediate, proportionate response.
Instead, the memo lays out four tiers of priorities with a deadline of 2027 at the earliest, and
2030 at the latest. Some of the changes in the first tier are as minor as reissuing DoDI 6400.06,
an existing instruction. The roadmap also proposes creating survivor-led support groups by
2030. It is absurd that changes such as reissuing a Department of Defense instruction or creating
support groups -- actions that require very few resources -- should take almost ten years to create.
This timeline is an abrogation of the level of urgency laid out by the experts on the 90-day
Independent Review Commission. The IRC outlined, in detail, the improvements necessary to
address the crisis of sexual assault in the military. It further ignores your direction
accompanying the release of the IRC Report that ordered an immediate establishment of a
Violence Prevention Workforce with the requirement the entire workforce be trained and
working by June 30, 2022, with half of the workforce in place by December 21, 2021. This
latest roadmap falls far short of those goals and timelines. It allows just part of this workforce,
the special victim prosecutors, to take until 2027 to be established. Given the magnitude of the
problem and the existence of these clear and valuable recommendations from the experts on the
IRC, the Department has no valid reason not to keep its foot on the gas.
For nearly a decade, the United States Senate has voiced its displeasure with and intent to reform
the military's handling of sexual misconduct among the armed forces. We will not accept an
additional 6 to 9 years of waiting for these necessary changes to be implemented. The majority
of Congress understands that this is not a problem our service members can wait years for us to
solve; 66 Senators and 220 Representatives have agreed to sponsor the Military Justice
Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act of 2021, legislation that would mandate
implementation of the below reforms within six months of passage.
Therefore, we request a briefing, no later than 30 November 2021, outlining the Department of
Defense's methods of execution to achieve the following improvements in no later than six
months.
1. Move the decision to prosecute sexual assault and other serious crimes to an independent,
trained, professional military prosecutor.
2. Ensure the Department of Defense develops tactics, techniques, and procedures to
support criminal investigators and military prosecutors' sexual assault and domestic
violence investigations.
3. Survey and improve the physical security of military installations to increase safety in
lodging and living spaces for service members.
4. Increase and improve training and education on military sexual assault throughout our
armed services.
Sincerely,