Evaluation of Military Services’ Law Enforcement Responses to Domestic Violence Incidents

Abstract

We determined whether: Military Service law enforcement policies related to responding to domestic violence incidents were consistent with DoD Instruction (DoDI) 6400.06,“Domestic Abuse Involving DoD Military and Certain Affiliated Personnel,” August 31, 2007, (Incorporating Change 2, July 9, 2015); and Military Service law enforcement organizations complied with DoD policy when responding to nonsexual domestic violence incidents with adult victims....The Military Service law enforcement policies related to responding to incidents of domestic violence that we evaluated were consistent with DoDI 6400.06. They also included procedures, not found in DoDI 6400.06, that are designed to enhance law enforcement personnel’s response to domestic violence incidents.

However, we determined that Military Service law enforcement organizations did not consistently comply with DoD policies when responding to nonsexual domestic violence incidents with adult victims. Specifically, we evaluated 219 domestic violence incidents and found that Military Service law enforcement organizations did not consistently process crime scenes (62 of 219), conduct thorough interviews (148 of 219), notify FAP of domestic violence incidents (49 of 219), or submit criminal history data to the DCII, the FBI CJIS Division, and the Defense Forensics Science Center (DFSC) (180 out of 219).

Several factors contributed to Military Service law enforcement not complying with DoD law enforcement policies. Specifically, we determined that Military Service law enforcement commanders instructed law enforcement personnel to implement practices that were not consistent with DoD requirements which resulted in noncompliance. For example, a commander instructed law enforcement personnel to rely on the victim’s command officials to take followup photographs of victims’ injuries, rather than have law enforcement personnel take the photos. In addition, Military Service law enforcement personnel did not have the necessary equipment, such as cameras and digital field exploitation systems, to comply with DoD policies that require law enforcement personnel to collect and preserve evidence. Further, Military Service law enforcement supervisors did not perform effective supervisory oversight of domestic violence incident responses. For example, we found that supervisors did not review incident reports or only performed superficial reviews, which did not identify or correct the deficiencies discussed in the report. (Author Abstract)