This request is a collaboration with independent researcher Julia Kieserman.
The Defense Sexual Assault Incident Database (DSAID) is the Department of Defense’s “authoritative, centralized case-level database used to collect and maintain information on sexual assaults involving members of the Armed Forces, including tracking and reporting on sexual assault-related retaliation data.”
Although the Department of Defense publishes some aggregate statistics on the sexual assault reports it receives (for instance, in the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office’s annual reports), such statistics are of limited use to members of the public who seek to understand patterns in sexual assault reports and outcomes beyond those pre-designated by the Department’s metrics. The published statistics, for instance, do not compare case outcome/disposition by victim, alleged perpetrator, or incident characteristics.
The types of records collected in DSAID are described in a Federal Register notice published on October 9, 2019.
Our FOIA request 📄 seeks all database records corresponding to the following categories of information identified in that notice:
- “location of […] incident”
- “victim […] relationship to alleged perpetrator”
- “case disposition information”
- “information on line of duty determinations”
- “information on expedited transfers and civilian/military protective orders”
- “alleged perpetrator […] gender, race, ethnicity; affiliation […]; service, grade/rank, status […]; location of assignment”
We limit our request to records relating to “unrestricted reports,” the reporting method that the Department’s Sexual Assault Prevention Response Office indicates “is recommended for victims of sexual assault who desire an official investigation and command notification in addition to healthcare, victim advocacy and legal services.”
Our request also seeks all database records documenting DSAID, to help with the interpretation of the data and to improve public understanding of DSAID.