history is kind of repeating itself. american people have to understand that because the world -- i'm glad they said they will not let this happen again. i'm glad they are investigating now. i don't know why the news is not talking about it. they could if they wanted to. the world is not going to let this happen again. it's sad so say, my father and them fought for this country and now we might have to have another country come in here to save black people. >> that's nate in kansas city. >> nate, i'm of the view that nothing can be compared to the holocaust, the trans-atlantic slave trade and slavery in this country. nothing can be compared to the native american genocide and a special place in hell reserved for those who perpetrated those international horrors. but there clearly is a problem in this country as it relates to our broken criminal justice system and the inability to deliver justice when an unarmed african-american male has been

killed far too off by police officers without justification. that's a problem we have to tackle. >> all right your e-mails. this one from ptaylor who writes about the president's response and eric holder's response. makc gardner's death about race. -- guest: this is a free country. i support the right of those st. louis players to express sympathy with the people all across america who are protesting police brutality. charles barkley has a right to

express his views as wrong as i believe they are. but this is america. we're all entitled to expression. >> protest in new york city last night, particularly in manhattan. how concerned were you that might get out of hand? >> i didn't believe it would get out of hand. in new york, we have a long history in the aftermath of these type of tragedies where there is a real or perceived injustice in the context of police brutality or use of excessive force of responding forcefully yet peacefully, engaging in non-violent civil disobedience or marches, expressions of outrage but doing it in a peaceful fashion. it was done when an african immigrant was shot 42 types by four police officers reaching for his wallet or his keys on his way into his apartment. there was peaceful responses when shawn bell was shot 50 times by police officers on the eve of his wedding day. he was an unarmed young

african-american man. the response was peaceful. so in new york, we will continue to be aggressiveseeking change. >> you state here in washington overnight, not back up to new york? >> i was here in washington overnight. i will be back in new york tomorrow at the session. >> back to calls. pennsylvania, lawrence, welcome on our republican line. >> caller: congressman, i'm a 75-year-old white wobbly. >> what's a wobbly. >> caller: you could do some research. you will find out. the justice system is not broken, congressman. it can't be broken. and you as a lawyer know full well how much lawyers and the law are involved in this whole mess. and it is a very difficult mess. i trace it back to 1937. what happened in 1937 was the

harrison stamp act. the entire war on drugs is the root cause for all of this. that is what has to be changed. what's happening in d.c. right now has to be addressed. i mean, senator andy harris, boehner and the rest of the congress that's going to go against d.c. law and interfere. thank you very much for your service. and thank you, c-span. >> larry tweets about body cameras. he has another view. ause >> sep. separation. guest: >> i think to lawrence's point, he raises a very good point in our failed war on drugs that has

resulted in the over incarceration of individuals in the prison system. 50% of the people behind bars are committed largely non-violent drug offenses and 8% of the people who are behind bars actually engaged in violent crime. that's a stunning statistic. it's one where i think democrats and republicans can agree that we need change. the other area where we can move forward is to re-evaluate the militarization of local police departments. to roll back the military surplus program. i voted against that amendment at the time, believing military surplus equipment in a post-9/11 environment in new york city, experiencing the horrors of 9/11, was a useful thing. but i think we have all got to reevaluate that program at this instance. ant we saw in ferguson was aggressive, military like response on american soil. that was unfortunate. host: on this bipartisan effort

on incarceration, we have seen this with republicans and democrats. is any legislation coming out of that? guest: >> is any legislation coming out of that? >> i think that there will be -- it's great hope that we still have divided government even though republicans will control both houses of the united states congress. we still have a democrat in the whitehouse. he still has two years left. he has a job to do. we can put partisan politics aside. we are heading into a presidential cycle. but i think americans are tired of the perpetual campaign where as soon as one ends, the next one begins. and there's never any opportunity to govern. >> let's hear from maryland. robert, good morning. >> caller: good morning. how are you doing? >> good morning. >> caller: i just want to say to you, i agree -- mentioned nin e

thinged abothing things with the nazis. it's identical in the rise of the nazi party in germany and here. i'm for education in this country just like a lot of people in institutions and a lot of german jews didn't believe what they saw. put from point to point all the way up during the rise of the nazi party, the same thing is happening with the extremist republicans in this country. they are undermining, they are holding back. the same things happen. german who was a propaganda minister to perpetuate that. the same thing is happening with fox news. >> let's go back to his comment. what have you heard from your

republican colleagues in terms of reaction to not only eric garner but the ferguson decision last week? >> there has been a lot of silence from many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who haven't necessarily addressed this one way or the other. there are many republicans in the congress who believe that we have a broken criminal justice system that we have an over criminalization problem in america, that we spend too much money on incarcerating individuals in an inefficient fashion and there are threats to liberty when there's the opportunity for government overreach in taking away your liberty through an aggressive system. i think on the historical point that the caller raised, we have to look at the legacy of slavery if we're going to look at anything. we have overcome a lot in this country. but we have a long way to go. we moved from slavery to reconstruction to the jim crow to the civil rights back in 1964 and 1965, voting rights act. but we have to figure out what more needs to be done in order

to make sure that equal protection under the law is truly a reality for everybody. >> you mention president obama two years left on his term. writing about his decision. the headline is container in chief, talking about the second time in two weeks he is addressing a racial issue and a decision by the grand jury. what do you think the president's best role is in these situations? is it important for him to visit ferguson or new york? where do you see his role? >> i don't think he needs to visit ferguson or new york or cleveland. the attorney general is the appropriate person in that regard. the attorney general has visited ferguson, of course, he is visiting cleveland today as i understand it and we hope to see him in new york at some point soon. the president has indicated that this is a problem that has persisted in america for far too long. there are a lot of people in america unfortunately who believe it will never change.

he has given us his promise it will change, it will be different because he's invested. we will have to translate those words into action now. >> a couple more calls for congressman. let's hear from missouri. barbara, hello. >> caller: hello. what i want to ask this representative of our government is, what's going to be done about the existing abuses, the ones regarding michael brown and tamir and mr. garner? something has to be done about the existing conditions. it's obvious that we have gotten to the fill point. this federal government must take over the policing that is happening at the state level which is nothing but a continuation of jim crow laws in the body of the police. that we in a country can believe that darren wilson was so afraid of an unarmed teenager and he had guns and an automobile and

all the power of the police force behind him that he was so afraid because he's a policeman that he has the right to murder people. >> okay. is it appropriate for a federal takeover of police departments? >> you raise an important point about darren wilson and whether the use of force in the manner in which it was deployed was excessive or not. one of the things to point out about darren wilson that i find interesting is he was 6'4", 210 pounds. he had a badge, a gun, a police force behind him if necessary. yet he chose to fire that weapon apparently more than ten times striking michael brown on six different occasions. that's why many of us believe we needed the benefit of a trial. i do agree with the point that there is an inherent conflict of interest between local prosecutors and the police department. because prosecutors rely on the police each and every day in order to move cases forward through the criminal justice system. there's a symbiotic

relationship. it's very hard to then turn around and expect that those prosecutors are going to aggressively go after law enforcement officials who engage in the excessive use of police force. that's why six members of congress, myself, charlie rango and others in august called for a federal justice department investigation of the violation of eric garner's civil rights. we do need to look at a state by state level on whether we need independent special prosecutors to step into the breach whenever law enforcement officers are accused of using excessive force. >> one more call from your district, brooklyn, robert, good morning. >> caller: good morning. i got go quick questions. the first one, i think there's a problem because the democratic party, they change the law from mayor bloomberg when there was a black man running for mayor. and then there was a black man

for governor and they told him to step down to the governor could learn. it's not how you represent black people in new york, which is a democratic state. even the union -- all this manner of people at the picket line. most of the people manner of people is not working. they have their man in the wrong circle and part-time job. caucasian people are working. what that means these are people that work inconsistently. >> we will get a response. >> it's good to hear from someone from brooklyn. i appreciate the thoughts you have expressed. you address a broader frustration as it relates to the economy. we experience the worst economic collapse in this country since the great depression in 2008. there were many financial institutions largely responsible for that collapse. they have rebounded. ceo compensation is way up. corporate profits are up. stock market is up.

the middle class and those aspiring to be part of the middle class are struggling. this is one of the issues where congress needs to come together to help turn the economy around to make sure that all americans can benefit from our economic recovery. >> congressman jefferies. >> good to be with you. in 15 minutes, we will take you live to defense secretary chuck hagel. we will provide an update on the military's efforts at responding to sexual assaults. on the senate floor today, members holding several rounds of votes on president obama's executive and judicial branch nominees. a farewell address by senator jay rock early if of west virginia who is retiring after 30 years in the senate. the house today will be voting shortly on a bill that would nullify the president's executive order on immigration. for more about that and government funding legislation,

we talked to a capitol hill reporter. >> the road to the spending bill and the end of the 113th session of congress has a stop in the u.s. house with immigration and a floor congrerida congressman. he said -- why is the house, particularly leadership, interested in taking up this bill today? >> well, i think house gop leadership is taking up the bill because, number one, the bill would try and nullify president obama's immigration executive orders. number two, it's really considered a show vote, a symbolic vote. it's not going to get to the senate. president obama just issued a veto threat if it even got to the white house.

it's a way to kind of give republicans, you know, an outlet to express their frustration. it will not become any action. it's just a way to satisfy a lot of conservatives who want to attack the president's executive orders. >> you are writing that in your latest article on the hill that leaders are planning to unveil their spending package on monday. they are calling this a -- tell us, how does the issue of immigration, the president's executive actions, play into what the house will do next week. >> the cromnibus is a combination of a long-term spending bill known as an omnibus spending package. so the spending package will

fund most of the government until next september through the rest of the fiscal year for most of the government agencies. however, the cr portion will only fund the department of homeland security for a couple of months. house gop leadership, they feel that this is a way to give republicans more of an opportunity and time early next year, once they take control of both the house and senate, to attack president obama's immigration orders, maybe this will give them a chance to coordinate how they could possibly defund the executive orders. it's unclear how they would do that. but it definitely gives them a way to kind of have another showdown next year once they have power. >> what role is senator ted cruz and conservative republicans, what role are they having in tieing the immigration debate into the spending debate? >> well, ted cruz came out at the front of this yesterday.

he stood outside with a bunch of house conservatives basically calling on all of congress to defund president obama's immigration orders. that's really not sitting well with republican leadership in either chamber. they won't don't want to shut down. mcconnell, boehner have said no more shut didndowns. everyone acknowledges this. it almost was like deja vu yesterday as ted cruz stood outside with the house conservatives. it reminded everyone of the leadup to the october 2013 government shutdown when he led the charge to defund obamacare at that point. at this point i think a lot of the top republicans in the house and senate, they learned their less sorn ons from the 2013 shu. the republican approval numbers dropped after the end of those 16 days. they don't want to go through that again if they want to take the white house in 2016.

>> you are writing about some of the disagreement on the democratic side in terms of the spending measure. you wrote this week, pelosi in a tough spot at democrats split over gop funding bill. why is she in a tough spot? >> a lot of democrats, the white house, they want an omnibus spending package. so a lot of democrats are upset that they have this cr portion that would only fund the department of homeland security for a couple of months. a number of democrats have argued that only funding that department for only a short period of time really could put u.s. national security at risk because there's kind of this up in the air situation as far as the budget goes at that agency. the other thing is that, with a cr, that basically is the same level of funding as the previous

year. that does not allow the agency to start new programs that they want to do on counterterrorism. it kind of puts a homeland security in a tough spot. there are some democrats who are kind of suggesting they're not going to rule out voting on this package because i think some are acknowledging at this point that republicans will need democratic votes. >> what does the word from the white house, what kind of spending measure? >> a 12 bill omnibus spending package. 12 appropriations bills that fund the entire government through next september. that's the ideal situation here. that's what the senate and house appropriations committees have been working on for more than a month now. it's kind of sad for them to see all of their work kind of going up in flames as far as the homeland security portion of this package. this is how -- this is what republicans are trying to do to

satisfy their base. and a way to attack the immigration order. >> follow rebecca at twitter and read more at thehill.com. josh earnest announced the president will make an announcement tomorrow morning regarding his defense secretary nomination. the current and outgoing defense secretary chuck hagel will be live here at 1:30, a few minutes from now. he will provide an update on his department's efforts as preventing and responding to sexual assaults. chuck hagel speaking to reporters at 1:30 eastern. we plan to bring you an event with tom perez highlighting a report showing that millions of american workers are victims of wage violations. that's live at 2:00 eastern time. as long as the event with defense secretary hagel allows

us to, we will get that to you as well. speaker john boehner spoke about today's immigration legislation in the u.s. house. he reacted to the grand jury decisions in ferguson and new york city saying both are serious tragedies and the american people deserve more answers about what really happened. >> good morning, everyone. we are weeks away from the start of a new american congress with a republican senate and the largest house gop majority that we have seen in 90 years. senator mcconnell and i have pledged to focus on the american people's priorities, starting with jobs. we expect to keep that pledge. this week and next, we are working to complete work on a number of important items. the president thumbed his nose at the american people with his actions on immigration. the house will make clear today

that we are rejecting his unilateral actions. then the united states senate should take this bill up and pass it. for the outgoing senate, democrat majority to do anything less would be an act of monumental arrogance. the american people elected us to heed their will and not to bow to the whims of a white house that regards the legislative process as little more than a nuisance. next week the house will work to keep the government open while keeping our leverage so that when we have reinforcements in the senate we're in the strongest position to take additional action to fight the president's actions. this course of action is based on numerous conversations with our members. and i frankly think it gives us the best chance for success. yesterday the house took a simple but powerful step to help individuals with disabilities across the country. the able act won't just help people with disabilities save

more of what they earn, it will help them build stronger lives and a better future. i think this is a wonderful step that we took yesterday. it has been a long time in the making. i want to thank andrew and kathy and pete, three of our members, who dedicated a lot of time and effort to this project. we had another opportunity this week to help our economy grow and increase hiring. unfortunately, the president blocked a bipartisan solution. instead the house acted yesterday to prevent tax hikes on small businesses, manufacturers and hardworking americans. lastly, in the new congress, i would urge the president to submit a new authorization for the use of military force regarding our efforts to defeat and to destroy isil. i remind the president last month that historically, the commander in chief has

identified the need for the use of military force, written a new umf and sent to to capitol hill and worked to build support for that measure. i told him if he does that house republicans will be ready to work with him to get it approved. thus far, we have seen no urgency on the part of this white house. the whitehou house needs to sho urgency because it's not reversing the terrorist momentum on the ground. i have grave concerns that the president has put in place -- his plan is not going to accomplish the goal of defeating and destroying isil. we need a more robust, comprehensive strategy. that should start with a new authorization of the use of military force. >> we have heard from a number of conservatives with this strategy. you said you were going to fight the president on immigration.

they don't think this is enough. how sharp with the teeth and nails? >> we think this is the most practical way to fight the president's action. frankly, we listened to our members. we listened to some members who are griping the most. this was their idea of how to proceed. >> mr. speaker, is trade promotion authority a priority for house republicans next year? is that something you are looking at? >> i have been trying to do trade promotion authority for three years. it's hard when the president won't stand up and ask for it. i have made clear that not only the president does he have to ask pore it, he has to work to build support to get it passed. >> why wait until you are at the brink of the government shutting down to pass the bill to keep the government running next week? why not do it this week instead of the vote on immigration which has nowhere to go? >> the appropriators have a lot

of work to do. as you know, the house did most of the appropriation bills. the senate did none. as a result it makes it that much more difficult to come to an agreement with the senate on an omnibus appropriation package. they are doing good work. they are not finished yet. it's as simple as that. >> do you anticipate you will need some democratic votes to pass the omnibus -- >> i expect it will have bipartisan support to pass the omnibus appropriation business. >> will you commit to bringing a bill up at the end of the 60-day period as the current bill ends that strips -- >> there are a lot of options on the table. i'm not going to get into hypotheticals. i do know this. we will have a republican house and senate in january. we will be in a stronger position to take actions. >> the members of the 9/11

commission say that there's just one of the 40 or so recommendations that they made a decade ago that hasn't been fully implemented. that is a streamlining congressional oversight of homeland security. there's 100 different committees and subcommittees that have some degree of oversight. do you have any plans to try to consolidate that oversight for next congress? >> i have been working on this for about six years. frankly, it should have been done when we set up homeland security committee. because they don't have a -- in my view, they don't have a sufficient jurisdiction to do their job in as strong a way as possible. but as you are well aware, that jurisdiction rests in other committees who aren't interested in giving it up. >> isn't it best to do it between congresses? >> it would if you can get members to agree. >> mr. speaker, you talked about griping members. there are a lot of them.

after this today, a lot of members are griping that republicans don't actually have a great deal of leverage to stop the unilateral action. are you willing in february or march or whenever it is to basically stop the operations of the rest of homeland security in order to force the president to sind this? >> we have limited options. but there are options out there. we will continue to pursue those options. >> are they any good? >> mr. speaker, why do you think republicans are so determined to stop the president from enforcing his immigration order at the same time they are willing to let the affordable care act go forward without any interruptions? >> we have worked and voted and voted and voted to get rid of the affordable care act. it's hurt being families, raising costs and wrecking the

best healthcare delivery system the world has ever known. we have put a lot effort into it. haven't gotten very far. again, come january, we will have a republican house and senate. we will be in a stronger position to deal with not only the issue of the president violating the constitution but stronger position to deal with the affordable care act. >> a few of your members have floated the idea of going after the president's white house budget, cutting the budget for air force i, maybe not inviting him to the state of the union. are those options on the table? >> the more the president talks about his ideas, the more unpopular he becomes. why would i want to deprive him of that opportunity? >> speaker boehner, there's been a lot of social unrest in the last few weeks, michael brown in ferguson, eric garner yesterday.

what is your reaction to that? do you support doj doing a civil rights investigation into garner's death? >> clearly, both of these are serious tragedies we have seen in our society. i think the american people want to understand more of what the facts were. there are a lot of unanswered questions that americans have. frankly i have. whether it's the department of justice, whether my colleague kevin rogers suggested that there may need to be hearings. i'm not going to rule that in or out. i do think that the american people deserve more answers about what really happened here and was our system of justice handled properly. >> you are sending members home today. do you foresee any changes next week on this emerging package that you seem hopeful about? to fund the government.

do you foresee any more changes to that? >> no. i think we have laid out a reasonable course of action suggested by our members. we did a lot of listening. this just didn't happen overnight. this didn't just wake up and have this idea. we worked with a lot of our members. i feel comfortable with where we are. >> the defense authorization bill was just posted online. it's 1,648 pages. have you read that bill? >> i've been through almost every part of that bill. as it was being put together. trust me, i'm well aware of whees in that bill. >> there are a number of sunset laws that will expire at the end of the year such as chemical safety regulations and the internet access. is there an attempt to get th e those -- >> of course, there's an attempt. i'm confident that all of those

will be resolved. yes, sir. last one. >> mr. speaker, you said in your comments that you are -- have grave concerns about the president's strategy against the islamic straight, perhaps a more robust strategy is necessary. do you believe authorization should include american troops on the ground leading that fight? >> i'm not going to speculate on what the president should suggest to the congress in terms of what that authorization should look like. but i do believe that a more comprehensive robust strategy is certainly in order if we're going to defeat and to destroy isil. thanks. >> thank you. live now at the pentagon where we expect to hear from defense secretary chuck hagel in just a few moments. he will provide an update on his

department's efforts at preventing and responding to sexual assaults. defense secretary hagel has announced his resignation and nbc news reporting on the president's next steps. president obama will announce his pick for the next secretary of defense friday morning, a white house spokesman said. ashton carter is expected to be the nominee. the white house has not formally confirmed that information. josh earnest announced the nomination event during a regularly scheduled press briefing this afternoon. that from nbc news. live from the pentagon. defense secretary hagel, an update on the department's efforts on preventing and responding to sexual assaults. we expect it to get under way in a few moments.

>> good afternoon. ladies and gentlemen, last december president obama directed dod to report back to him within a year with a full scale review of dod's progress in the fight against sexual assault in the military. chairman dempsey, general snow and i briefed the president earlier this week on that report and the results. and today i'm announcing the review's findings as well as the latest actions we are taking to

continue to improve dod's prevention and response efforts. i want to thank everyone -- there were many, many involved in this. but i want to thank everyone who was involved in this comprehensive review which was organized and directed by our sexual assault prevention and response office and supported by the defense manpower data center. i want to thank in particular our undersecretary personal for reasonness. as i think you know, she's announced her retirement after 40 distinguished years of service to this country. i ask secretary wright if she would stay on the job until this mission was complete. she did. and i appreciate that. i know our defense department,

the men and women of of this department, appreciate it as well. thank you for your service to this country, many, many long and as i said distinguished years. also, general snow, to you, thank you. as you all know, general snow heads up our office. to your team, jeff, thank you for what you have done, your direction, your leadership, your commitment. and to all who work with you, we appreciate it. i think you all know that general snow is going to stay after my remarks. i will take a couple of questions and then he can take you down into the depth of the review and the results and go as far as you want to go with this. we have, incidentally, briefed members of congress on this over the last 24 hours as well. general dempsey and general snow

and i briefed the president on this two days ago. the white house has been briefed. the review both was about kwaul taive and quantitative measures. we used both to evaluate our progress here at dod. we asked the rand corporation to independently administer a departme department-wide survey, the largest of its kind. it received over 145,000 volunteer responses, which is the highest response rate we have ever seen. we conducted focus groups that gave us not only direct feedback from our own people but also recommendations, important recommendations, many of which have been incorporated into the directives that i'm issuing today. for the first time ever, we talked to survivors of sexual assault in the military to learn where they have seen progress

and where we need to do better. overall, the data shows that while there have been indications of real progress, measurable progress over the last two years with improvement in ten of the 12 specific measures, including redugsed prevalence and increased reporting, we still have a long way to go. sexual assault threatens the lives and well-being of the women and the men who serve our country in uniform. it destroy the bonds of trust and confidence which is at the heart of our military. eradicating sexual assault from our ranks is not only essential to the long term health and readiness of the force, it is also about honoring our highest commitments to protect our fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. the department of defense has been taking aggressive action over the past year and a half to stop sexual assault. i made this i think as you all know one of my highest

priorities as secretary of defense. as i think you all know, i have directed over 28 new initiatives over the last year to strengthen how we prevent and respond to sexual assault in the military. how we support the survivors of this despicable crime. how we screen, educate and train our people and how we hold accountable not only offenders but also dod as an institution and all of our leaders. we recommended significant mim teary justice systems reforms that has since been codified into law with the help of congress, with the help of the white house and outside groups that have given us much counsel on this and support and help. we improved victims' rights and privacy. we implemented a ground breaking special victims council program across dod giving survivors for the first time a voice in the

military justice process. we believe that our efforts to prevent sexual assault are beginning to have an impact compared to 2012, the dod survey we are releasing today shows that the prevalence of sexual assault in the military over the past year has decreased by about 25%. we also found that most service members highly rated their commander's efforts to promote a healthy climate of dig nifty and respect and discourage inappropriate behavior. in nearly 90% reported taking ak to prevent an assault when they saw the risk of one occurring. we also believe that survivors are becoming more confident in the military's response to sexual assault. compared to 2010, because more survivors participated in the justice system than ever before we have been able to hold more perpetrators accountable. we now have over 1,000 full-time

certified response coordinators and victim advocates and over 17,000 volunteer personnel ready to assist survivors. after last year's unprecedented 50% increase in reporting, the rate has continued to go up. that's actually good news. two years ago, we estimated about one there ten sexual assaults were being reported. today, it's one in four. these crimes, however, are still heavily under reported, both nationally and in the military. so we must maintain our focus throughout the ranks and continue to earn the confidence of survivors. one of the most important ways of he wering that confident is to reduce retaliation against people who report sexual assault. this is a challenge we are very aware of and have been addressing. we now have better data to help us to keep working to be more

effective in stopping this retaliation. in 2014, over 60% of women who reported a sexual assault perceived some kind of retaliation. often in the form of social retaliation by co-workers or peers. we must tackle this difficult problem head on, because like sexual assault itself, reprisal directly contradicts one of the highest values our military, that we protect our brothers and sisters in uniform. when someone reports a sexual assault, they need to be embraced and helped, not ostracized or punished. today, i am issuing four new directives to help close these gaps and build on what we have already done. we are developing new procedures to engage commanders to prevent professional and social retaliation. we're also revamping training for junior officers, junior

enlisted supervisors and civilian supervisors so that they are better prepared to both prevent and respond. we are undertaking a wide ranging study of prevention efforts and a tearry installations nas wide. there's more to be done. for example, rand data showed we have a long way to go in fighting the cultural stig nas that discourage reporting among men. and in addressing assaults that hide under hazing or practical jokes. and we must continually reinforce accountability up and down the chain of command. based on the many conversations

i have had with service members all over this country and around the world, i'm concerned that there may be an increasing use of social media for sexual harassment. like sexual assault, this problem is not new or unique to the military. but dod holds its people to a hu higher standard. if you want to wear the uniform, understanding core values is not enough. on duty or off we must enforce our values every day. dod will continue its strong and committed efforts to pursue comprehensive and dynamic approaches to fighting sexual assault in the military. president obama and all of dod's leaders both military and civilian are committed to doing whatever it takes to stamp our this scourge. in may i told you about my visit to the dod safe help line for survivors of sexual assault.

i told you about the wall i saw that was covered in anonymous post-it notes, notes that contained inspiring words of thanks spoken by individuals who called into the hotline. i thought about those notes as i know all our leaders have over the months. we ultimately want a military with no more victims, no more calls, no more post-it notes, no more needed help and no more efforts to stop it, because it will be stopped. we're not there yet. but we will get there. until then, we will continue working relentlessly to prevent sexual assault. and we will give survivors the help and support they need. i want to thank you all for your coverage of this issue, your continued coverage. and before i take a couple of questions, i want to acknowledge

our vice chiefs of our services, some chiefs here who are with us this afternoon. their efforts, their leadership, their commitment at stamp out sexual assault would not have come as far as we have come. thank you without your help and all of your help and i'm glad you are here today. it has been a privilege to work with you on this and many other areas -- issues. thank you very much for what you do. ladies and gentlemen, thank you. before general snow proceeds with his details and answering your questions of the results and recommendations, i would be glad to take a couple of your questions. >> mr. secretary, if i might, i'd like to ask you something on a separate topic. as you have seen over the last couple of days there has been a lot of reporting on your decision to resign, including a lot of observation that you were

forced out or forced to resign. did you feel pressure to predesign either spoken or unspoken at all? did that play a role in your decision? john mccain said that he talked to about you this and that you expressed some frustration with national security decision making. and he pointed to micromanagement. was that also a factor in your decision? how big a problem do you think that was and is? >> well, as to your first comment, i haven't noticed there's been any attention given to this over the last year. i'm flattered, especially in the last week you would concern yourselves about this. the real question that you ask, i would answer it this way.

first, you heard the president's comments on this. i will let those comments speak for themselves. the president and i, over over e last few weeks have had private discussions. when i say private, no one else has been in the room. the president of the united states and me. so with all the speculation and all the smart people figuring out what was said and what wasn't said, only two people know what was said. that's the president and me. so i'll give you my brief version, and then you can ask the president for his, but he has spoken i think directly on this. i submitted my resignation to the president of the united states. this was a mutual decision based on the discussions that we had. i don't think there's ever one

overriding or defining decision in situations like this unless there's some obvious issue and there wasn't between either one of us. i always looked at this job as a job, first, of immense privilege, which i have expressed to the president and i said so many times over, which i'll always be grateful to the president for this privilege, but also when you look over the last two years and it will be two years in february i've been here, part of leadership is you build and hopefully build and participate and contribute to an institution is you build on a process. i built on to what my predecessors, my most immediate predecessors secretary gates and

secretary panetta did what they had to do. i took on a different set of challenges over the last two years. and the preparation of an institution is probably the most significant responsibility a leader has to hand that off to someone who is coming in behind you. and the discussions the president and i had were about the next two years. how is he best prepared to lead this country and how is this institution best prepared to do the things that he must have assurance that are prepared to do. options, capabilities, capacities. and going back to the first point i made about the last two years, we've had a tremendous amount of challenges over the last two years, and i'm very proud of how this institution and its leaders, chairman dempsey, all of our chiefs, our secretaries, both military,

uniform and civilian, have handled them, have responded. i'm proud of my leadership over here, how we've done it, but the next two years is another -- another zone i think of kinds of challenges for this country. and leaders have to be wise enough to know that, and as we talk through it, the president and i did, we both came to the conclusion that i think the country was best served with new leadership. he thought it was over in this institution after we had talked through it. i made my contribution during my time. and i'm proud of that, of what we did, and i -- i feel very confident and very secure about, as i leave here, that we, all of

us together, not secretary hagel, but all of us as a team, have prepared this institution over the last two years to take on these big issues that are ahead. those issues are still undefinable. we know of some of them. we know of long-term challenges, but i think you have to know when to leave, too. and as i said, there are just two of us in the room during these discussions, and we had some very direct and very honest relationships. i would also say that as the president has said, the president is a friend. i consider him a friend. he said that about me, which i appreciate. friends can talk plainly to each other. he's president of the united states. i serve at the pleasure of the

president of the united states. but we talked as friends, we talked as americans, we talked as senior leaders for this country who both have awesome responsibility. as to any difference, referencing senator mccain, there were no major differences in any major area. sure, there are always issues of style and how you get things done and are things moving fast enough, but this country, as i've said, is well served to have a president like president obama who is thoughtful, who is careful. this is a time that a powerful nation, the most powerful nation on earth, must be very wise in its implementation of its power. it must do so with a clear,

steady sense of who it is, what it wants to accomplish, always looking out for the longer term, not just a quick decision, impacts, consequences, ripple effects. great powers have that awesome responsibility. a president of the united states has that awesome responsibility. and i have been proud to serve in his administration and i leave here, again, very, very, very proud that i've had this opportunity and very secure in knowing that these people and the next secretary that comes behind me will be better prepared than we were two years ago, not having anything to do with my predecessors because they've -- they did tremendous work, but their challenges were totally ditch what, bob gates faced, what leon panetta faced, what chuck hagel faced.

we bring a new leader in, we'll face a new set of challenges. >> was senator mccain wrong when he said -- >> i've already answered the question. >> i'm afraid i'm going to keep on the same track here. you're suggesting perhaps that you came into office thinking somehow you might -- let me just ask you this, that you might only stay a couple of years, but nobody i know really thinks of you as someone who would quit. so the question goes back to you. why did you feel you could not stay and finish the job if there are all these new challenges, was, respectfully, with all due respect, was isis too much? was sequestration too much? why did you, are not the president, not the nse, why didn't you want to stay and finish the job, sir? >> well, two answers to your two basic questions. number one, i didn't come into this office with any preconceived notion i'm staying four years, one year,

three-year. this is a business that -- that's always up predictable. you recognize that going in. so i never said i would be here two years or four years. so that's -- that's the first part of your question. no one ever knows about a job, especially a big job, until you get in it. until you're the actual practitioner of the job. now, you can read about it. your predecessors can tell you about it. you can think you know about it. and you can write about it and broadcast about it, but nobody knows about these jobs. let me finish. second, it wasn't a matter of whether i thought i could stay here for another two years. i thought i explained that. that wasn't the issue. whether i thought i could do the job, whether it was isil or any

other challenge, that wasn't the issue. what i said here just a moment ago was as you look forward, the next two years and the challenges that are coming, as i thought through it, as the president and i talked about it, i think fresh leadership is not but the president and i had a long conversation, actually had more than one conversation about all this. and so it wasn't a matter of was isil too much or the budgets too much, no. it was, as i said, i think leadership comes with a responsibility of also knowing when is probably a good time to let someone else come in and come in behind and pick up where you have left off, as you have

built, as panetta did, as gates did, an institution. >> you didn't want to stay? >> it's not a matter of what i wanted to do and what i didn't want to do, barbara. it's a matter of what i thought was best for in this institution, for the country, and for the president. and this has been a great job, and i have loved every minute of this job. i really have. but as i think ahead, as i've already told you, this may be hard for some people to understand it, but you've got to be in these jobs to understand what's ahead. and how to prepare an institution and what's best for an institution. now, let's just use, take this a little further. i think everybody knows that most likely, there's going to be a rotation of a new chairman of the joint chiefs of staff next year, a vice chairman of some of the chiefs, that's the president's call ultimate lit.

but there's most likely going to be a rotation of senior leaders. and as i thought through this, this is probably the right time for a new team for the next two years. for all the other reasons that i've mentioned. i just one other point. as i began my comments to lita, it's not one defining issue for me. it would be different if there was one thing that i just could not accept or i just couldn't do or whatever it would be. no, it wasn't that at all. but it's a combination of things as you think through these things and the president and i talked about it. so i'm very comfortable with my position and my decision. i think the president feels good about it. i feel good about it. this country is such a great country, this institution is so

much the core of who we are as a people and i've always tried to do everything in my life based on what i thought was best for the country or for the institution i represented. not that i'm a selfless person. i'm not. but i just one last point, i'll end here, 46 years ago today, i arrived at oakland, california on a transit back from vietnam after i had spent one year in vietnam, 46 years ago today. if anybody would have told sergeant hagel walking off that plane with my duffel bag where i'd be 46 years down the road, that would have been pretty hard for me to believe it. i mean, the privileges i've had have just been -- thank you all. happy holidays.

thank you. >> thank you. >> one question on the -- on the subject of the news conference. >> okay. i guess it's called last man standing. well, listen, i'd like to follow up and as the secretary articulated kind of go into the details of the report. so i'll walk you through a set of slides try and hit the highlights, reinforce some of the points. first point i'd like to make is this report is comprehensive. it covers a lot of ground. it's over 1,000 pages long. in addition to the overall report by the department of

defense, each of the military departments and the national guard bureau contributed a supporting report further detailing their progress. the secretary also agreed to a question by the coast guard to include a submission because a model they model their program after ours. the property outlines significant improvements, criminal investigations and the military justice system over the past three years. the report contains preliminary results from a force wide survey conducted independently this year by the rand corporation and overseen by dr. christie gore. they will be providing a separate briefing on the results of their survey follow. ing today's press conference. it also contains results from the new survivor experience survey. what the secretary mentioned and a service member focus group evident, both overseen by dr. elizabeth van winkle, also here today.

the report further provides us provisional statistical data about the reports of sexual assault received by the department during fiscal year 2014. while we believe this report demonstrates significant progress, we are in no way suggesting that we have accomplished our mission of eliminating sexual assault from the united states armed forces. we've got much more work to doen and to this end as you just heard, the secretary is directing initiatives to further enhance the growing climate of dignity and respect. now, as most of you know, the department established a sexual assault prevention and response program. 2005. in the ensuing years, we've taken many steps to improve our efforts to help victims heal, hold offenders appropriately accountable and encourage forcewide support in the prevention of these crimes. however, starting in 2012, then secretary panetta and secretary hagel energized the program by giving it their personal attention. in 2012, is the joint chiefs of

staff also provided strategic guidance to the feet on sexual assault prevention and response, guidance that eventually became the department ide strategic plan that secretary haggle issued in 2013. this ton precedented sustained senior leadership engagement has driven much of the progress contained in the report to the president. in fact, mr. hagel's willingness to put this on his weekly schedule has been a key factor that has sustained much of the attention paid to this problem. the secretaries of defense have directed 41 initiatives to improve expand or field new capabilities for prevention and response. many of these initiatives have been codified by law making them permanent. to the assist with the describing our system and illustrating progress along key points in the system, the white house requested that the department develop metrics. in february of this year, the department delivered to the white house approved a set of 12 metrics. also included were a set of six

nonmetrics designed to illustrate certain aspects of the military justice system. while metrics are typically developed with the understanding that inputs can be tailored to generate certain outcomes, the nonmetrics are simply observations about the justice system we try not to influence as doing so would be considered undo command influence under military law. as the secretary just told you, overall, the department found evidence in 10 of 12 metrics, descriptions of these metrics and a summary about our progress on them have been included in the back of the slide deck provided to ow. the report also details our progress in many additional areas that demonstrate our focus on prevention in our uncompromising commitment to victim assistance. these improvements are solid substantive changes to how our program is applied across the force. our leading indicators about the problem of sexual assault show continued progress. our survey results indicate that there were 6,000 to 7,000 fewer

sexual assaults in 2014 than in 2012, while our reports of assault continued at the same high rate last year. in fact, in 2014, we experienced an 8% increase in reports of sexual assault made to dod authorities. i think some of the media outlets got this incorrect reported the increase in the report as an increase in assaults. i want to make it clear that is not true. the increase is in reports which as you all know in this particular crime, an increase in reports is a good thing. so given the decrease and prevalence and increase in reporting, we estimate that beat heard from one in four victims up from one in 10 in 2012. i'd like to just tell you condensing a report of this size to a short briefing does not do justice to the progress of the department has made over the last three years. i'll try and give you highlights. the department approaches this problem through its strategic

plan organized by lines. listed on this slide contained in the report are more example of evidence of the progress you can review for yourself. for example, the prevention line of effort captures the work we're doing to stop the crime. past research shows that there are likely to be fewer sexual assaults in units with healthy climates. as a result, are in 2013, is the secretary directed every unit commander to be required to regularly assess their unit and act on the feedback from that assessment. that assessment process includes some accountability measures, as well. each commander's immediate supervisor is also provided the results of that assessment. and then each of the services has implemented policy that allows unit commanders actions to be assessed annually on their performance evaluation. soefls this cycle of assessment, feedback, action, are and

evaluation is something the department has not had the in the prior years. and we do expect it to be particularly powerful aid in promoting long-lasting and meaningful organizational change to prevent not only sexual assault but other factors that impact unit health. another topic is something that was fully enact this had year across the department. that is the special victims council program as it is known in the army and air force and the victims legal council program as it is known in the navy and marine corps. this is the program that provides an attorney to victims of assault for consultation and representation in the military justice process. while this program is less than a year old, initial indications are that the victims are highly satisfied with the services rendered by these attorneys. we will be watching closely how this program impacts sexual assault reporting and victim participation as it matures and becomes a robust part of the department's response system and justice process. while time will not permit me to the go into greater detail on

these and other examples of progress, the steps we have taken energized by leadership are real and tangible and this process has an effect on some of the statistics that i'd like to go into. as many of you know, we use prevalence rates to estimate the extent of the sexual assault in the military, between 2012 and 2014 it, prevalence of unwanted sexual contact decreased significantly for military women and trended downward for men. rates of unwanted sexual contact are down significantly for beth men and women from levels seen in 2006. the prevalence estimates this year came from a rand military workplace study, an independent survey effort taken at the request of leadership of the senate armed services commit. dr. morale will describe there effort in more detail at another press event following this one. now, as i said earlier, official reports of sexual assault in 2014 continued at the same high levels we saw in 2013 and

actually increased by%. as you can see on the chart, reporting increased substantially between 2012 and 2014. last year and this year and i think this is an important statistic, 9% of the reports we received were from victims who were seeking assistance from an incident that occurred prior to them coming into the military service. we see these reports as particularly encouraging and it has an indicator of confidence in the response system. victims in these cases are only seeking assistance as the department lacks jurisdiction over the perpetrators in nearly all of these cases. of this chart demonstrates the progress the department is making in closing the gap between our sfimted prevalence of sexual assault and the reporting of the crime. the blue points across the top of the slide are population estimates of active duty service members who experience unwanted sexual contact, and the years noted and are based on the scientifically kucked surveys of the force. as you can see in 2014, about

4.3% of women and 9% of men indicated experience unwanted sexual contact in the year prior prior to being surveyed. so using these rates, we estimate about 19 thought service members experienced unwanted sexual contact in 2014. the red points across the bottom of the chart are the number of active duty service members who make a report of sexual assault in the years noted. these are reports made to law enforcement or sexual assault response coordinators. as you can see the number of service members making a report increased substantially in the past two years, initially as we received the report from 4,608 service members. given this year's prevalence and reporting rates, we estimate we received a report from about 24% or the one in four victims of sexual assault in 2014. and this is up from about 11% or one in ten victims in 2012. so that is progress in terms of

closing this gap. however, there is considerable difference in estimated reporting rates between women and men. while we estimate 40% of female victims made a report in 2014, only 10% of estimated male victims made a report. so clearly we have more work to do to encourage men to come forward. it is the department's intent to close this gap by bringing prevalence rates down with by encouraging greater reporting by victims. that being said, reporting a sexual assault is a highly personal choice and one that may never be right for some. we respect that decision. for them, we have the support and services available through the dod help line which is 100% anonymous and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. for those victims is considering reporting to their department, we've provided them with options and services which they can choose to assist them and if desired help them navigate the

military justice process. if you are a survivor of sexual assault, please reach out to one of our trained counselors at the dod safe help line at www.safe help line.org. this slide demonstrates the disposition of military members made by commanders under the legal authority of the department. of the 2,419 service members accused of i sexual assault, the department had evidence to take some kind of action against 73% of them. actions could be taken for a sexual assault offense or any other form of misconduct that was discovered during the criminal investigation. action against the remaining 27% could not be taken due to such factors as insufficient evidence of an offense to prosecute, victims declining to participate in the justice process, and other evidence based reasons. as you can see, the percentage of cases ending in some type of action is up considerably from

the 57%s in 2009. we believe this does represent the investments the department has made in the training and resourcing of criminal investigators and attorneys over the years. this slide answers the question, how do military commanders address allegation afc sexual assault when they want have sufficient evidence of a sexual assault of and no legal authority over the accused. as you can see, by the red line in 2014, two-thirds of the commanders supported by legal advice from their judge advocate chose to address sexual assault allegation biz preferring court-martial charges. the evidence of misconduct in 21% of subject cases this year was best addressed by the nonjudicial punishment process and 14% received some form of administrative action or discharge. please keep in mind, the offenses being described here ranging from groping up through penetrating crimes like rape and each disposition reflects the

level of evidence and severity of the crime according to the legal standards of the uniform code of military justice. also contained in the report and the secretary mentioned this is the first of its kind, anonymous survey of military survivors of sexual assault who made a restricted or unrestricted report to the department. 2014. what is reflected in the report is our initial analysis of about 150 survey responses and what we plan to be an ongoing survey. we strongly believe that feedback from survivors who use our services is an important source of data that we can use to improve and expand our support. overall, most survivors that responded to our survey were aware of and satisfied with the assistance they received from our first responders and service providers. of note, the special victims council attorneys and sexual assault response coordinators were the most highly rated by survivors who use these services receiving 90% and 89% ratings

representfully. of most concern and the secretary spoke to this were the victims who's perceived some kind of social or professional retaliation. 59% of survivors indicated they perceived some type of social retaliation associated with their report. and 40% indicated they perceived some kind of professional retaliation, behaviors associated with both of these terms are defined for you at the bottom of the slide. while this survivor survey was not generalizable to the full force, we asked rand to ask about perceptions of retaliation, as well on the statistic survey of active duty this summer. there was a woman who experienced unwanted sexual contact and reported to dod authority, 62% indicated perceiving some kind of pretaliation associated with the report. with most perceiving social retaliation and a lesser amount perceiving professional retaliation. this is admittedly one metric in

which the department cannot demonstrate progress. one additional insight we were able to gain from the survivor experience survey is that commanders receive fairly high marks in their support of victims but these high marks did not extend to all as you move down the chain of command. this and other data we have indicates that commanders appear to be providing good support but others in command in the chain may not have the skills and knowledge to do the same. this last sum of the defenseman power center conducted nearly focus groups at ten installations to capture information that is more qualitative in nature. while the theme captured may not be generalizable to the entire force, they were heard across all services and the national guard. this approach lets us provide an impression of what our soldiers, sailors and airmen and marines are saying and thinking about sexual assault and the department's efforts to address it. so here's what they told us.

they said they've been trained extensively on the problem and the resources available, consistent with other data i presented today, focus group members noted a positive shift in the department's handling of sexual assault and harassment and this shift is a substantive changing from career years past. again with few exceptions, focus group participants indicated their leadership was, working hard to encourage an environment of dignity and respect. however, they too saw the potential for those making a report to perceive social and professional retaliation for reporting. also included in the report in a separate annex is a review of the reforms to the military justice system since april, 2012. the military justice system has seen substantive change over the last few years. last year's changes were the most sweeping reforms since the late 1960s. victims' rights and legal protections have been substantively expanded while commanders discretion over cases has been limited with decision making authority having been

pushed to higher more experienced levels of command. these and other reforms are currently under way. the department is also reviewing the response system's 132 recommendations to further improve sexual assault prevention and response and the judicial proceed sgs panel is studying among other things the reforms that have already been implemented. next year, the military justice review group will be producing a review and make recommendationses to further amend the uniform code of military justice. however, their focus will be the uniform code of military justice in general and it is not specific to sexual assault. as the secretary announced he is announcing further actions to address some of the findings in the report. the first two listed here specifically address retaliation. we firmly believe we've got an obligation to ensure that victims of sexual assault can report the crime without concern of retaliation from their peers or anyone else. therefore, the secretary is directing action to have military commanders specifically

ask about and follow up on experiences of retaliation when they chair the monthly case management group that reviews an installation's response to all reports of sexual assault. commanders will be asking about retaliation against victims or first responders and then referring these experiences for investigation if appropriate to do so. second, as indicated by our data, most unit commanders receive fairly high marks and their support off victims and their efforts to provide a climate of dignity and respect. however, this does not appear to hold for the other individuals down for this -- down the chain. so for this reason, the secretary is directing improved training for military first line supervisors and those civilians that supervise military members. as we found with new commanders, the skills and knowledge that allow someone to effectively promote a healthy climate and prevent retaliation must be acquired and practiced. first line supervisors are the

ones most likely to see unacceptable behaviors when they occur and take quick corrective action. third the secretary is directing a study that will allow us to better assess and customize and consider local factors that impact sexual assault prevention efforts. several service efforts indicate that one size does not fit all when it comes to prevention. what works at a large army base in a metropolitan area may not necessarily work at a small air force base in a more remote rural area. this study will help us identify concrete examples of what things military communities can do to further prevent sexual assault. and then finally, feedback from our focus group sessions indicated that our troops may benefit from hearing about the progress we're making in sexual assault prevention and response. so this final directive will require the service to provide feedback directly to our soldiers, sailors and airmen and marines in an inactive way. in summary, the department's report documents substantive and

comprehensive progress since 2012. progress we do think was ignited by senior leading engagement, a commitment to transparency and collaborationing with experts, members of congress and other federal partners. however, no one here is declaring success. you just heard that from the secretary and i'll reiterate it. we have much more work to do. however, any decrease in prevelance indicates that there are fewer victims of this horrible crime and i think we all would agree that is a step in the right direction. we will continue to monitor and publicize our progress. we are not satisfied and recognize that future progress will be defined by continued decreases in prevalence of sexual assault. it is our intention to continue prevention work as broadly and as creatively as bobble so as to reach our goal of eliminating sexual assault from the military. our focus is truly on reinforcing a climate where sexual assault is seen as acceptable not just because it's

illegal but because it is counter to our correspondence values. at this point, i'll be joined by the department's highly qualified expert dr. nate gal barth who i'm very fortunate to have as my partner in this effort and we'll be happy to take your questions. lolita? >> two things. one on the retaliation you've all addressed that quite a bit, but obviously, last year's 50% spike, do you think that played any role in the fact that there was a lot of retaliation and that there was only a -- there was a smaller increase this year year that the%, do you think that the retaliation issue tamped down reporting to some degree over time, and how do you address that with -- these are officers, obviously, it sounds like who are -- who people are claiming are retaliating even if they're first line. are they -- do you add training? how do you get to those first

line people that you haven't yet done, and i have a follow-up on the prosecution. >> okay. let me take a stab at it. you said something though that's not accurate per se. so last year, are you correct. we had a 50% increase in reports. the challenge last year was when we reported that, unfortunately we did not have a prev lanes survey and didn't have the feedback from that that specifically addresses retaliation. so it's difficult to know and link the two, okay? so when we talk that the department has made not made progress, we're talking about not making progress from the retaliation rate that was found by the wgr report in the 2012 compared to 2014. and with regard to officers, when we say first line supervisors, you're right. we're talking junior officers but we're also talking about junior noncommissioned officers.

those that are in most direct or direct supervision of the demographic that is most at risk which is, of course, is that 18 to 21-year-olds. dr. gelbart, anything you want to add to that? >> no, sir. >> okay. next. >> you said you had a part two. >> part two is on and correct me if i'm wrong because there were a lot of numbers floating about there. >> yeah. >> but it sounded to me like the sort of prosecution aspect seem a little flat from last year to this year. you said like 73% or so, there was some action taken and that that number didn't sound like that number actually was all that different but i wasn't sure. and then also the court-martial number seemed to go down. >> right. >> right? so why do you think that end of things didn't go up?

>> well, let me just say this. i mean, this is -- that's why i made the point and i talked specifically evidence-based. so this is one of those -- one of those metrics where we reported but that's what the evidence presents. so the fact that it happened to be the same last year and this year, we just see that as the facts as they came to us. the second thing with regard to the court-martial, you're right. there has been a trend in referring, put up there slide 8, if you can, crystal. but what you're showing is if you look at this, what it shows is that when the document tritt came out an invisible war, it shows that ha there was probably some truth in that, given the evidence that was presented. but obviously, we have come a long way from 2009 forward. just because there's been a

slight decrease, that is what the evidence shows for 2014, again, once again, we don't see that as a bad thing. we just see that as what the evidence provided us. anything you want to add to that? >> i would just offer even though the percentage was the same, the actual numbers increased. that's what's along the bottom line there. i show you the number of military offenders that were considered by commanders in each of those years. there's almost a 300 increase there. >> i guess i asked because as you know, that was one of the issues that congress has been deeply concerned about. and does this sort of add fuel to the fire for changes in some of the commanders' authorities and all that because we don't see -- because we do see sort of a drop in that number. >> yeah, but i think dr. gull barth's point about a drop. percentage but it's an increase in number. over here. >> quick questions to ask. you mentioned that the retaliation was one of the 12

metrics, one of the two total that was not increased. what was the other one? >> thank you. i'm glad you asked that. and i don't know that you have slides. if not, i'll make sure8ho:m get these slides. crystal go to the first slide in the backup. the answer to your question is investigation length. investigation length. so yes, any time a, this crime is reported, it is referred to a military criminal investigative organization, it must be investigated. and what we found is that the investigation length increased from four months to 4.7 months. as we really looked at this, you'll note when you actually look at the slide, we -- that's not -- we didn't claim that as progress but we didn't say that is not progress either. i'll tell you why. reporting has increased dramatically. and what we've noticed a number of these reports are from reports that are happening not

just in the past year but years prior to that. so the fact it's taking us longer to investigate them, we don't think that's a bad thing and upon reflection, although we list it as a metric, we probably should have made it a nonmetric, it is what it is. okay? >> also on this, i had a question about you mentioned that military commanders discretion over sexual assault cases were limited and their decision making authority has been limited. can you give us more specific, house are they limited? what are the changes exactly? >> do you want to address that one? >> absolutely. one of the things that secretary panetta did in 2012 is he elevated the initial disposition authority to '06 level officers. captains in the navy and colonels in the army and the air force that had special court-martial convening authority. so basically what that meant is, one of the concerns was is when an offender, when a commander

gets a report of investigation and has to decide what to do, what if that commander knows this person that's been accused and they're under their command? well, the concern was is that maybe those decisions aren't as independent as they should be. and so what secretary panetta directed was to elevate that decision up out of that unit and to a much higher level in the chain so that it hit a more seasoned, experienced officer who was removed from all the parties involved to be able to give the initial decision on what are we going to do with this case? is it going to go to court-martial punishment, things like that. in addition there have been a number of things, changes to article 60 which addresses clemency so the ability of a commander to set aside a verdict after a finding of guilt has been almost all but taken away. and there are a number of reforms that i would refer you to the judge advocates that could go into more detail. those are two of the most

significant ones. >> with the clemency, have you seen a change in the number of cases that get overthrown because for a victim, that's probably the worst thing to get a conviction and then to see another officer overthrow that. have you seen significant differences in the number of cases? >> well, i haven't seen any. there haven't -- the last one we are aware of was the wilkinson case. >> yeah. if i could just conclude on that. i'm glad you asked the question because you know, there was an article in the "new york times" that wrote extensively about this. what i would highlight for you in that comment our system has changed so fundamentally that what happened in that particular case that's received a lot of publicity for all of the right reasons but that can't happen. okay? so that's why we say we've not had any evidence. it just hasn't happened. >> what about the sex offenders themselves? we've been reporting how hundreds of them after they get out of the military brig end up

falling off the radar not on any public sex offender registry. the inspector general of dod talked about in august how right now the military's inability to register sex offenders while they're still in confinement helps these offenders evade registration. so the question is -- is there's a push on the hill to change that. where does the pentagon stand on this issue? >> hmm. i think that's one that i'm going to have to take. i don't -- >> that's not our -- >> i was just going to say that is one probably better left to someone else and probably the ig or or maybe ogc within the department. but i don't have a good. >> has not come to your attention yet? >> no, it has not. i knew i have seen an extract of what you are describing. but i will tell you, that is not one that i am well versed in. >> should the pentagon, i mean, if this is the office

essentially that is in charge of looking at sexual assault prevention and response -- >> yeah. >> should there be an aspect of prevention and response of further sexual assaults in the civilian community, as well that comes under your leadership? >> i think that -- i think we have a relationship and we work very closely. has just not been one that again in my experience over the course of last year that we've had that, but in light of your question, we'll obviously take a hard look at that, so thank you. yes. >> hi, general. i wanted to ask about the screening can of troops in positions of trust that secretary haggle had ordered. >> yes. >> as you know, the army disqualified 588 soldiers. i'm wondering if that screening is on going and how many troops have been disqualified from those positions and how many have been discharged from the service. >> you know, tom, i can tell you the answer to the question is screening on going is yes. and the wake of that the

analysis, we're working to kind of take that to the next level and automate some of -- some of that. as to the specific, your specific question, i'd have to defer to the army on what their latest numbers are. i'm sorry, i just don't have that. yes. >> i want to ask you a question on the retaliation. >> yeah. >> in the report today, it indicates that the percentage of people in the survey who indicated that they perceived some form of retaliation has remain unchanged between 2012 and 2014. >> right. >> reporter: one first of all, what is the mechanism for someone who feels retaliated to complain about that retaliation and second, is there any data indicating that the department of defense has prosecuted or investigated these claims of retaliation? >> well, let me take the first one and turn it over to you for the second one. you know, retaliation is such a tough issue. i mean, we would hope that if an

individual was willing to come forward and report that they had been retaliated on that they would tell someone, whether it's in the chain of command or outside the chain of command, i could tell you if it were to come to the leadership attention, then it would be investigated and followed up. unfortunately, we don't have a lot of sticks yet that tell us what, in fact, has been referred to investigation, and we hope to have more evidence of that as part of the annual report. anything you want to add to that? >> as an air force office of special investigations agent for 12 years in my military career, i followed up on any report of retaliation because that was witness intimidation. that's something that i definitely wanted to get after and hold people appropriately accountable. that being said, a new tool that congress gave us is making retaliation an actual violation under the uniform code of military justice. i don't have data on that yet as far as the numbers go. our process this year for

meeting the president's guidelines or deadline was to shrink a five-month process to about 30 days. so all of the quality and wealth of data that i usually have for an annual report i don't have yet, but it will be coming this spring when we report to congress. >> so you're actually collecting data on people reporting retaliation. >> we've had people ask and i'm going to reach out and collect that data, yes. >> i wanted to ask a question about rape and penetrating crimes and the way that rapid looked at the data opposed to the way the military did. it appears that rand found that the number of assaults, sexual assaults on women. 2014 that involved penetration was 35% versus 29% based on the way the military has looked at the data. are you familiar with this? >> intimatelily familiar. >> yeah, right. and for men it's worst, 35%, rand found 11% the military found.

does this show that rape is a much more the worst form of sexual assault is a much more problematic than you had initially thought? >> so the here's what i'm going to say. the answer is no, but i am going to have dr. galburgh. number one, i would say rand 15 minutes after this is going to separate lit have a briefing. they'll walk you through that. and i would encourage you to do that because it's really going to lay out for you those differences and why. i really want you to have that because those that just look at numbers but don't hear the briefing kind of come to the conclusion you did and it's not the right conclusion. >> all i would say as far as penetrating crime goes, in our surveys we don't try to classify what kind of crime under article 120 ucmj people experienced. that's why we have the broad category of penetrating versus nonpenetrating. rand wants to show you their

methodology and how they might be tapping into the some of the crime stats people have experienced but maybe didn't necessarily think that they were sexual. and because under the uniform code of military justice, article 120, the behavior that you experience doesn't necessarily have to be sexual. that might be tapping into hazing and things like that like the secretary said. >> do we have time for one more? >> yes. >> have you looked into the demographics of the offenders who they are, what their service histories have been, if they have had post traumatic stress disorder if they have been in iraq and afghanistan? have you broken that down. if there's not a big problem in the air force but there is a big problem in the marine corps, is that included in the report. >> that is not included in the report. i can tell you for the most part, our demographics our offenders are about 18 to 35 years old. they are in enlisted ranks most of them grouped between e-2 and about e-7 or 8.

but most of them in that main spot of about e-4 to te-5 to e-6. we don't have -- we're currently conducting some research right now that will give us a better insight as to service history and where these folks come from and what they've been doing, but i don't have that yet. >> okay. thank you very much. i appreciate your interest in this matter. as we leave the pentagon, the associated press reporting very quickly that president obama's planning to name former deputy defense secretary ashton carter to be the next pentagon chief. that's according to administration sources. that will happen tomorrow. we'll go live now to the center for american progress. there were remarks earlier from labor secretary tom perez on wages and benefits. he has moved on. there is now a roundtable

discussion on the exact same topic. this is just getting under way. >> panelists. a very briefly give an introduction to them. i can't do them justice in the time we have so i'm going to keep their bios short so we have the time for real conversation. so on my far left we have julie su. she was appointed by governor jerry brown as california labor commissioner in 2011. she's a mcarthur genius engineered recipient and bind litigation with multiracial organizing community education, policy reform, coalition building and media work. to her left we have dr. david weil who was sworn in as an administrator of wage and hour in may 2014 at the labor department. prior to his appointment, he was a professor of economics at boston university. he's an internationally recognized expert in many things that we're going to talk about.

in fact, wrote a book that i highly recommend the fisher workplace describes the changes to the modern workplace. and we'll be talking more about that. to my right, we have terry ger steen, the chief of the labor bureau for the new york attorney general's office. previously she worked as deputy commissioner for wage and immigrant services in new york state department of labor. and to my far right we have andy be shallal, he's an activist, artist and social entrepreneur. he's the founder and owner of busboys and poets and for those of you who in the audience are watching on tv might not be aware, he's an activism center and cafe in washington, d.c. and keeps expanding and expanding. he's doing great. so goal here is to have a conversationing about how the american workplace is changing. what has made wage and other

workplace violations more common and widespread. how this impacts businesses, workers and taxpayers. and what we can do about it, what sort of the techniques that are most effective what do we need to do. i want to also let the audience know you will have a chance at the end to ask some questions. we have great panelists here that i'm sure many people would like to ask questions. so i'm going to start with a question for each of you and my bowl goal is to have as much of a conversation as possible. david, i'm going to start with you. i want, i'm hoping you can talk a little bit about how the workplace has changed in many different ways that have contributed to the problems that the secretary described. if you could also give a sense of sort of how big the problems are, i this i that would be useful and also talk about sort of who has been most affected,

what kinds of workers and industries have been affected. is this just a low wage problem? where does it extend to? >> thank you, david. and thank you for the opportunity to participate. so there's been for a long time people aware and talking of the problems of things like outsourcing and subcontracting and as the secretary's describing misclassification. and we've been seeing more and more of it. what at the wage and hour division and i know my colleagues at the state level in the same way are trying to grapple with where those changes are coming from and i've used a term the fissured workplace to encompass all of these kinds of changes because i think what we're seeing is a large scale change in business organization that's been going on for the last 20 years that has the result of the kind of workplace problems the secretary described in the report that was released

today really documents as have others recently. and basic idea of a fish sewered workplace is that as businesses have become under greater and greater pressure by public capital markets private capital marketsing to show their value they create for both investors and consumers, a couple of things have happened. number one is they've focused on what in business school in my former life we would have called can core competencies, sort of stripping anything away away that's not about the basic thing you're basically creating value for for customers and invest shz. that's how economies develop. some level of that kind you have specialization. the problem starts arising because with that strategy business organizations have been shedding it activities and they've shed activities to other organizations so rather than being the person who directly

employs folks who do payroll or do certain kinds of administrative practices or increasingly do things even very close to the core, you push that out to other players and you can do that through subcontracting, through licensing, third party management, so on. and no longer have the responsibilities directly for employing people who are doing that work. but at the same time, you see an evolution of it's not that businesses have stepped away from the control of the outcomes. in fact, if you think about those two pieces you got to have a glue if you want to protect your core competence but not through the work, you've got to the make sure that you're getting a quality product, meeting time standards, and so the third piece of this fissured workplace is a lot of control in an effort to make sure those other organizations are doing what they're supposed to be doing. the problem starts arising as you split apart, i use the fissured word because i got it

from my wife used to be ageologist and i thought of the breaking apart of rocks and as rocks break apart, two things happen. the fissures deepen. and they also spread. and we're seeing exactly this in terms of this outcome. you get fissuring begets fissuring. you get subcontracting begetting subcontracting. you get lots of different kinds of networks of businesses all trying to deliver pieces of that services. and the more that happens and the lower you go in these structures, the greater the pressure is for noncompliance. greater the pressure, the profit margins are thinner. there's more competition for that work. you're competing against products that look or services that look more and more the same and the result is the kinds of patterns that we're seeing in terms of noncome compliance that the secretary talked about. and the second aspect that have and the second kind you have metaphor of fissuring is the spreading. so while we saw thut classically

emerging in some of this as old as the garment industry. i've just described the garment strit from you know, the late 1800s, early 1900s. the issue is it's spreading widely. we now see it, we walk into a hotel and think it's one business with the marquee name as controlling it. well, in fact, there could be five, six, eight different businesses doing the front management work, another one providing the janitorial services, the landscaping, the restaurant services. and the more that splintering, the more that fissuring happens, the greater incentives for the kinds of problems we're seeing if you look at at patterns in the companies where we find particularly high rates of noncompliance and where investigators spend a lot of time in their work, it's precisely in these sectors and in these parts of these sectors where you have this splintering at its most highest degree and are creating the greatest

problem. and so the problem i think we're all wrestling with is if you go about your business the traditional way, you will never -- you'll never get ahead of the problem because it emanates from this profound business it emanates from this profound restructuring that i think we're all trying to grapple with through a variety of ways. >> great, thank you very much. my next question is for andy. you work -- you're a successful sbrentrepreneur in the restara industry which is notorious for these kinds of violations, e yet you choose to operate in a different manner. i was wondering if you could talk about why you choose to do that, how it works and also how it impacts you to be competing against other kinds of models of business. >> i think restaurants have always been notorious about having the worst employers and

shortchanged their employees. it's interesting. i think society doesn't hold -- the community does not hold restaurants to a very high standard when it comes to those types of things. but god forbid should you not serve organic chicken or it would have a fit. and would probably stop patronizing you, but if somebody finds out that a restaurant is shortchanging their employees on tips or shortchanging employees on wages that usually doesn't have a lot of impact. i know a good restaurant that had issues and they get away

with it and continue to do very well. and that's unfortunate. so i think from my perspective i have to first of all give a shout out to the rrlt opportunity center, which has really done a remarkable job in trying to professionalize the industry in a way. a group of restaurant tours, people in the industry, decided to sort of come together. because you always have employees coming together to try to raise the standards. but don't always have the opportunity to have restaurant owners come together to raise the standards. and so we created something called raise, restaurants advancing industry standards in employment, and that's an organization that really just started. we have a little over 100 restaura restaurants involved in it, who are looking at professionalizing the industry, which is something that i've always wanted to do.

from my perspective, i'm growing my business and i want to find the best and the brightest and retain people. i want to make sure i attract people that are really good at what they do. and the one way to do it is a lot of people when they think of the restaurant business they run away to the other side. temporary place to just set your foot in. i was on a different path and i got into the restaurant business and was when i told my parents i was going into the restaurant buiness, they said what are you thinking. this is something you just do temporarily and you do more professional things. and so i've always stuck in my mind that the restaurant industry can become a very professional, very rewarding industry. and i think the way to do that is to make sure we raise the level of how we go about doing

business, whether it's in the food we serve, which we have done a remarkable job in teaching the consumers how to deal with that, but i think we have done a pretty lousy job in teaching consumers how to deal with restaurants that provide great work environments. there's no real serious repercussions that come from consumers on that. people always come and question -- we have grass-fed burgers that are done really well and they are served with fresh products all around. we charge about $10, $11 for burger and people get kind of annoyed they are charging that much so we have to be able to respond to make sure we're not just paying for meat and the product, but you also pay the fact that we give sick leave and vacation pay and all of that to all of our workers whether they tipped employees or not is built

into that factor. when you're paying $5 -- they will understand that better. >> thank you. julie, i want to talk about california's been a leader in strategic enforcement. david mentioned sort of his comments how the scope of the problem and that the importance of narrowing down and figuring out where to go and what to do. i read that i think 80% of your investigations lead to citations and so clearly you have been doing something strategic in the way you enforce the laws. can you talk about your strategies and how you think about doing that? >> thank you very much, david. so when i came into office, the

average in the last ten years for the investigation to citation rate was roughly 48%. less than half of the employers that are being investigated or inspected actually had a violation found. so that's a very poor return rate on the government's investment of resources in inspections. so i really sought to turn that arou around. not only is it bad for those good employers who aren't in violation but have to stop everything to be inspected, it's also a poor use of government resources. in government we always talk about how we need resources to do the things we need to do. one of those things was just to move away from the idea of just the on sight inspection as being the key to the successful investigation.

in other words, we now do a tremendous amount of work before we even go out to make sure we targeted correctly, that we look ed at the data, whatever our sister state agency have, whatever we have in terms of past violations, wage claims filed against a certain employer, we do surveillance ahead of time, number of employees going in and out. if we see time records that contradict what we have seen, that's a red flag that something is going. on in that workplace and there's likely to be a violation. we have also formed -- we do a lot of investigations now that are not doing regular business hours and that's important because there's been whole periods of time where people feel that no one comes for weekends, after hours, so we have changed that. so one example is in the administration janitorial industry not one where the agency backed off saying that it's hard to do and the hours are off. we should be not running away from those industries, we should be running towards those to ror

recover those violations. the last thing i'll say about it is government cannot work alone. one of the biggest strategies is partnerships, whether that's with other government agencies or with community-based organizations and unions on the ground as well as with employer-based associations. the california chamber of commerce has been a strong partner of ours. i have met with hundreds of car wash owners, restaurant owners, construction companies, janitorial companies because they know who is underbidding them. they know a lot of times where the violations are innicurrinin. when it comes to community-based organizations, they often have the trust of working people that government does not yet have and the ability to sustain the type of in-depth investigation we need to do sometimes will take

months. so having partners to make sure the workers can stay engaged, off sight interviews, it's not most effective to go. on site. the traditional way of doing on sight inspections. we don't do that as much anymore. part of what we do, but it's not the whole thing. recently to pick up on andy's points, we just paid out $4.25 million to a group of restaurant workers in the san francisco area whose tips were being taken away from them, not being paid overtime. we issued citations against ten buffets throughout california for $16 million where these were -- the average hourly rate for these workers was $1.15 for 72-hour workweeks. so the types of violations that the secretary has talked about that we see, they are not isolated. this is really a rampant problem. so we have really tried to be more creative about how e we do inspecti inspections so with the resources we have, we can be

effective in uncovering them. >> thank you i'm going to come back to some of those points. we'll have a fruitful discussion about those partnerships. but i want to make sure we bring terry into. the the conversation. . you sit in a slightly different position at the attorney general's office. i was hoping you could talk about how you think about these enforcement questions, and especially talk about the idea and use of criminal enforcement and how that differs from civil, what enables to do and its effectiveness. >> so thank you. i have the perfective of having been in the new york state department of labor and now in the attorney general's office as the labor bureau chief. and based on that experience in the attorney general's office, we still do a lot of civil enforcement and that's still the bulk of our investigatory and our case work, but we have increased our criminal