Consulting. Hes chief of the u. S. Armys Police School behavioral sciences, education, and training division. He has been an important leader on the issues for some time. Has been the architect of our responses. Not only the military but civil sector as well to investigations. I would like for him to flag some of the issues he thinks are most important here. Do you want to come up here, russ . Im going ask him to talk about what is most important here and ill run through the slides. Hell correct me as i get the language wrong. Its been an honor and privilege to work not only with the subcommittee but the great staff and leadership of dean hillman as we moved along. What has been equally fulfilling is go across our nation and look at all the professionals both military, civilian that are working hard every day to get after the most difficult scores we call Sexual Assault. Im highlighting some im going to do an overview of these and get into the detail as we go along on the investigative recommendations. I want to echo Major General snowes assessment it is a dynamic moving train. The way were investigating Sexual Assault 40 years ago is far different than today. The way we were investigating 10 years ago is different than today. Five years every year we seem to be Getting Better and better. What were realizing is that investigating Sexual Assaults is far more complicated, far more difficult and more biases than the homicide cases. They are easier to work than your typical alcohol facilitied Sexual Assault. Than the oneonone Sexual Assault. One of the terms is he said she said. There is no such thing. Theres far more information and far more victims and far more offense and offenders we need to look to. As we look across the spectrum and look at the great agencies out there in the civilian world and compared them with the great agencies within the civilian world, im going add a couple more terms to the chart. We have the mcio military criminal investigationers to confuse the term. The people that work within the investigative organizations are agents. We confuse agents and investigators. Youll see that. We have a threetiered Law Enforcement response system. We have patrol whether it is military police in the army, Security Forces in the air force, some of the other Security Forces. Military police in the navy, coast guard response systems. Thats the first here. Our patrol are generally told and trained to respond. They are not investigators. They will not do anything other than protect the crime scene, making sure the victim is safe guarded. Make sure everything is safe and make sure people get to the right places and the investigators notified. The second tier is the Army Military the navy calls master of arms and also what the marine corps. And navy calls theres a difference and u. S. Army cid agents. It handle the vast majority of misdemeanors. And also some felonies. Up until the repeat changes that congress made for the military criminal organizations. The Security Force investigators and some of the Navy Investigators were handling some of the nonpenetrative crimes. Congress said no, we want all Sexual Assaults to be investigated bitco military criminal investigations. Rhyme hi im going highlight couple of things i feel strongly about. Certainly the volume of cases from even the last several years has increased exponentially. At a time when the air force and the navy were told youre going shift a big portion of the Sexual Assault investigations to the mcio. The reports have gone up, in my hope. I hope its the hope of everybody in the room. Continue to see a significant rise in report of Sexual Assault. What we would like to do is revisit the opportunity to maybe bring some of our investigators and our second tier folks under the officers of the military criminal investigationive organizations to conduct some of these cases. We think it might provide some relief. Some shares of the resources. We have a significant amount of training we do already highlighted. I think its in the training that makes a difference between how our agents see the crimes and complexity in alcohol facilitated. co the whole spectrum. The neuro science were bringing in. I will say that Navy Criminal Investigative service, air force office of special investigation, Army CriminalInvestigation Division and also the coast guard investigators have done a tremendous job in meeting these training requirements. The big difficulty we have is oftentimes advanced training is taken out of hype. The services have to give up some funding. Theres only so much in the pie. One of the concerns is as we progress and the need are advanced training continue. When we take the eye off the ball. Someday we wont have hearings and all kinds of interesting committees and to try to get at were going move somewhere else eventually. What our concern is funding may move somewhere else. Congress decided were going give specially appropriated funds to be used only specially for family advocacy. We ask for the same consideration in training, advanced training for investigators and agents. If we dont have that, our concern is now were taking money out as we are shrinking the military. The budget is shrinking. Theres a lot of competitive ps. We ado we dont want some of the money to go meet other needs. In a civilian world if im a detective and interviewing somebody about underage drinking or smoking marijuana or other misconduct i really dont care about is as a detective im not going to do anything with. Im not going stop and read the person their rights. Generally im not going to for a couple of reasons. Under miranda, they have to be custody. If im a official of the government and suspect misconduct. I must read someone their article 31 rights if theyre a member of the armed forces. It creates two problems. Theyre not in custody but might feel like it when they have the rights read. Im talking to a victim who is sharing the most difficult thing, the most intimate thing that happened to him or her, and right in the mid of that they might bring up something i suspect they might have been involved in a commission of a crime. A miner crime. Excuse me, i need to stop for a moment and advise you of your rights. The Chilling Effect it has on everybody is amazing. What that does to that victim at that point in time creates just a profound overwhelming sense of what do i do now . I reported a major crime. I reported a crime that the department of defense wants to know about. Im volunteering my information now youre reading my right. So we took a long hard look at that and got recommendations in that area as well. These are developing a list of secretary of defense would accept as in the area of Sexual Assault, you know, miner misconduct that he would be allowed to give immunity for our some other im not sure how we would do this. A list as an agent i wouldnt have to read somebody their right for the type of misconduct. Also, maybe looking at article 31 for minor misconduct in the area of Sexual Assault. The other issue that we have is case termination. As we have seen with the comparison dean hillman mentioned its hard to compare not only between military and civilian but within the services. Each one of the Services Look at case determinations a slightly different way. For example, the army unfound cases based on some after coordination with sja make determinations the navy and the air force do not. They basically wait until the case gets to the commander. The commander decides whether its unfounded or not. It goes in the mix. What were recommending is look at the uniform crime report. Which almost every single uses. We think it will clean up problem areas. We dont believe the unfounded cases were getting are basis or false. What do most people think when they hear unfounded . Theres a couple more and then ill be done. One is in the area of the saying. I have a lot of good sayings. Nurse examers. And we cant have one size fits all under the fiscal year 2013 or 2014. Theres a requirement if you have an emergency room with 24 hour seven day a week, you know, open that much theres going to be as we look at small, medium, and large. If we look at the navy with the ships and everything else. Its impossible. Even some of our medical centers dont have same nurses that are large installations. Fort hood, example. They have a capable system offpost where they go to the qualified nurses and get the same product experience. We were told that the maybe look at make at recommendations where one size fits all, because it certainly doesnt. Along the same lines, we went to the crime lab in georgia and talked to a lot of experts. I will tell you our Defense Forensic Science Center is nothing short of amazing, in who theyre doing, and the research theyre doing for touch dna and other things well have in the future. But all of the people we talked to, all of the experts we talked to said no more plucking. Currently theres a requirement to pluck pubic hairs and body hairs and head hairs, the experts that we talk to say theres no need for that. There was back in the 60s and 70s and maybe the 80s. But no more plucking. Thats one of our things. Well get a Bumper Sticker for that along the other thing to take out, in restricted reporting, we want to holdn8 fendoffender accountabi. Currently our database doesnt put in subject data, so if we have a multiple victim case at an installation, we have no way to go back and say, hey, has there been some restricted reports, unrestricted reports, so were going to make recommendations along those lines. But another thing that were going to recommend is unrestricted reporting. Currently if a victim reports to Law Enforcement in any way, shape, or form, theres an automatic investigation. And we went out and ashford oregon and some other Police Departments have some really good best practices. If a victim wants to talk to a detective, they may determine they dont want an investigation and these Police Department will not conduct an investigation. We want to have the same opportunity for victims to am can forward, ask us questions about the investigation, about how were going to do this and maybe gain some confidence with them. So what were asking is the restricted reporting provisions be relooked at to allow a victim or Victim Advocate to talk to one of our agents, tell us what happened, share with us what happened, give us the information. And after they talk to us, make a determination where they want the investigation to go forward or not. We think it would make it easier to report and answer questions along the way, instead of a victim being told by some other party, you dont have to talk to Law Enforcement. Which almost sometimes sets up a negative. So were asking for consideration on that. So thats a very important aspect. And what we have found in a sense is that victims do want to get more information. And we want them to make a more informed decision before they go forward, move forward. Those are some of the things i highlighted, and we look forward to any questions and comments and give and take. But its just been a really rewarding experience for all of us and thank you for your leadership. Thank you. Thank you, russ. Judge jones, ill make a suggestion here that i walk through the recommendations with one from 7 to 22 and then see if the panel has any questions about our survey. That would be a great idea. About the surveys or the investigative part, before we move on to the rest of this. So the slide that was up here behind russ as he spoke and he highlighted much of this, so you have a good framework for understanding our recommendations. The first one says the secretary of defense should direct that nonspecial victims units agents coordinate with special victims unit agents in all Sexual Assault investigations. This is recognizing the distinction between civilian agencies and military agencies. But having special investigators handle all of these investigations regardless of severity is challenging in terms of resource allocation. So this recommendation points in that direction. This does as well. This is another point that their strand mentioned which runs to the importance of training. The secretary should direct continued careful and select direct training of agents, using civilian agents because of their experience wherever possible. We want to make sure we have competence and commitment in those who are investigating, supervisor agents to ensure continuity, and finally that we do we are attenditive of the need to reassign. These cases can create burnout. And we need to protect the responders so they can be there for the victims who come forward. This runs to our point about the importance of funding. We recommend congress appropriate centralized fund for mcios to provide advance training. Military investigator training is more robust than our civilian counterparts for the most part. However, continuing that and maintaining it is important. We want to target continued training on the importance of reducing bias and eliminating bias. Because thats so long been a challenge to victims who come forward and encounter that. Finally, we want to avoid the language in reports in reports and interviewing that implies a Different Event happened than what the victim experienced and we know how to do that now. We understand what those best practices are and want to make sure that we train our investigators on that. Next, this is about the response, the different types of responders to incidents in the military. We recommend the secretary direct the role of military Police Investigators continue to protect the crime scene, ensure safety and wellbeing and to report to the military criminal investigative office. Civilian officers some discretion. Military police do not have discretion and have to refer. This ensures a specialized processing from the outset that improves the that should improve the experience for the victim in what is inevitably a trying process and improve the response overall and the potential success of a prosecution. Next, this runs to the increasing case load that mr. Strand mentioned too. As numbers increase, the burden on investigators does increase as well. We recommend that there be a little more flexibility in resource allocation, so that less severe incidents of Sexual Assault, thats a very broad term in the military because of the extent of behaviors that are prosecuted as Sexual Assault. The minor incidents be investigated under the supervision, under the oversight of special victims unit agents. So the increased reporting and the requirement for investigation of all the article 120, the military Sexual Assault statute has created an increased case load. We need to give flexibility here for better resource allocation. Thats what this recommendation runs to. Next, this came up repeatedly as we talk to investigators. We need a standardized procedure to streamline and expedite the military criminal investigative officers use of this investigative technique in occurrence with the law. So this is very effective. We mentioned our visit to the forensic labs and how impressive the capability is, but we need to recognize, too, that forensic evidence is not available in many, many cases. And that getting information from the individuals involved is a key part of what the investigators need to do. These pretext phone calls and text messages, the social media investigations that need to ensue are important. Right now its not standardized, theres different procedures. We want a streamlined way to make this happen in the military as it does in civilian agencies so we can investigate properly the many cases in which a Sexual Assault is not reported so fast, that theres forensic evidence thats available. Next, this goes to a critical point in the investigation of a Sexual Assault. And in the success of responses altogether. This also runs to the confidence of victims in reporting and our efforts to increase the reporting rates for those who experience Sexual Assault in the military. This goes to collateral misconduct. Which mr. Strand mentioned. So we recommend the secretary standardize the policy regarding rights advisement during the interviews of victims of Sexual Assault when they disclose minor misconduct. First bullet points out civilian investigators do not advise of rights because the law does not require them to. The potential prosecution for collateral misconduct is a barrier to reporting and is a barrier to investigation. The current policy affords the convening authority dretion to waif criminal liability for minor misconduct. And practices right now vary as to how article 31b is implemented by investigating officers. We believe there should be a standard policy. We should make it clear to our investigators what they should do and make it clear to victims what they can expect if they come with the courage it takes to report a Sexual Assault. The second part of our recommendation here is in realization of the fact that article 31 does require rights advisement. Right now unless its modified. And we want a procedure that grants immunity for victims who disclose collateral misconduct along with a list of qualifying offenses and we want to consider recommending change that Congress Change article 31b. This would remedy the confusion arou