U S Department of Justice
Office of the Inspector General
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or General
The Handling of Sexual Harassment
and Misconduct Allegations by the Department’s Law
Enforcement Components
Evaluation and Inspections Division 15-04 March 2015
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION
The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) conducted this review to assess how the Department of Justice’s (Department) four law enforcement components respond to sexual misconduct and harassment allegations made against their employees. This review examined the nature, frequency, reporting, investigation, and adjudication of such allegations in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); and the United States Marshals Service (USMS).
Issues That Arose During the Review
The OIG’s ability to conduct this review was significantly impacted and delayed by the repeated difficulties we had in obtaining relevant information from both the FBI and DEA as we were initiating this review in mid-2013.
Initially, the FBI and DEA refused to provide the OIG with unredacted information that was responsive to our requests, citing the
Privacy Act of 1974
and concerns for victims and witnesses as the reasons for the extensive redactions, despite the fact that the OIG is authorized under the Inspector General Act to receive such information.
After months of protracted discussions with management at both agencies, the DEA and FBI provided the information without extensive redactions; but we found that the information was still incomplete. Ultimately, based on a review of information in the OIG Investigations Division databases, we determined that a material number of allegations from both DEA and FBI were not included in the original responses to our request for the information.
1
Both the ATF and the USMS provided the OIG with full, complete, and timely access to our requests.
2
See generally Privacy Act of 1974
, Pub. L. 93–579, 88 Stat. 1896, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, which governs the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of personally identifiable information about individuals maintained in systems of records by federal agencies, and the Inspector General Act of 1978, § 6(a)(1) (authorizing OIGs “to have access to all records, reports, … documents, papers, … or other material available to the [agency] which relate to programs and operations with respect to which that Inspector General has responsibilities under this Act”). Because the OIG is an agency within the Department, and handles information it receives consistent with the requirements of the
Privacy Act,
the FBI and the DEA’s failure to provide the information to the OIG at the outset was unwarranted.
i
We were also concerned by an apparent decision by DEA to withhold information regarding a particular open misconduct case. The OIG was not given access to this case file information until several months after our request, and only after the misconduct case was closed. Once we became aware of the information, we interviewed DEA employees who said that they were given the impression that they were not to discuss this case with the OIG while the case remained open. The OIG was entitled to receive all such information from the outset, and the failure to provide it unnecessarily delayed our work. Therefore, we cannot be completely confident that the FBI and DEA provided us with all information relevant to this review. As a result, our report reflects the findings and conclusions we reached based on the information made available to us.
RESULTS IN BRIEF
Although we found there were relatively few reported allegations of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in the Department’s law enforcement components for fiscal years 2009 through 2012, our review of the handling of these allegations revealed some significant systemic issues with the components’ processes that we believe require prompt corrective action.
Coordination between internal affairs offices and security personnel.
At ATF, DEA, and USMS, there was a lack of coordination between the internal affairs offices that receive sexual misconduct allegations and the offices responsible for ensuring that employees meet the requirements to hold security clearances. In most cases where employees were alleged to have engaged in high-risk sexual behavior, security personnel were not informed about these incidents until long after they occurred or were never informed, even though such behavior presents possible significant security risks.
By contrast, at the FBI, the
3
We discuss our findings in the
Executive Summary
in the order of importance. However, the
Results of the Review
follow the disciplinary process: reporting, security, investigation, and adjudication.
4
“High-risk sexual behavior” is defined in
Adjudicative Guidelines for Determining Eligibility for Access to Classified Information,
as conduct that involves “a criminal offense, indicates a personality or emotional disorder, reflects lack of judgment or discretion, or may subject an individual to undue influence or coercion, exploitation, or duress or raise questions about an individual's reliability, trustworthiness and ability to protect classified information.”
See
generally
,
Memorandum from Stephen J. Hadley, White House Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs,
Adjudicative Guidelines for Determining Eligibility for Access to Classified Information
, December 29, 2005.
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