Military Confinement and Correctional Facilities, Policies, and Practices

Gao ID: FPCD-80-28 January 10, 1980

A survey of current military confinement policies and practices included a review of pertinent Department of Defense (DOD) and military service directives, and discussions with members of the Defense Corrections Council and headquarters corrections personnel from each of the services. In addition, DOD actions in response to previous recommendations on uniform treatment of prisoners under military correctional facilities were assessed.

The services have been cooperating in consolidating and jointly using confinement facilities. Each service is striving to improve its correction program; both DOD and the services are revising and updating their corrections directives. However, certain problems identified in the 1975 GAO report still exist. While the Defense Corrections Council has served as a useful and regular forum for exchanging information on confinement and corrections policy, it has been unable to insure the degree of uniformity possible. The Council lacks the authority to enforce services' compliance with DOD policy. Consequently, centralized direction and oversight are still needed to insure appropriate and uniform treatment of military prisoners.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: No director on record Team: No team on record Phone: No phone on record


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