Improving Oversight and Coordination of Department of Defense Programs That Address Problematic Behaviors Among Military Personnel

Pressures inside and outside the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to reduce the incidence of problematic behavior1 within the military without a significant increase in additional resources are inducing OSD to rethink how it is organized to provide policy guidance and oversight of the departments numerous behavior-mitigation efforts. This means reconsidering the default institutional response of setting up a new program or task force to address each behavioral issue as it surfaces in the popular and congressional consciousness and, instead, developing a streamlined and integrative framework for addressing a range of related problematic behaviors. This is easier said than done. It continues to be a difficult task to determine what constitutes problematic behavior in a military context, how these behaviors should be categorized, and how much coordination there should be in the efforts to prevent and respond to them. The Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity within OSD, in consultation with the military deputy to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness(USD[P and R]), asked RAND to help OSD develop an integrative framework for preventing and modifying problematic behavior among military personnel by identifying options to improve its coordination and oversight related to six specified problematic behaviors: sexual harassment, sexual assault, unlawful discrimination, substance abuse, suicide, hazing.