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Open Recommendations (31 total)

K-12 Education: School Districts Need Better Information to Help Improve Access for People with Disabilities

GAO-20-448
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Justice The Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division should work with Education's Office for Civil Rights to provide state educational agencies and school districts with online information, technical assistance, or training materials related to federal accessibility requirements in public school facilities in the context of safety and security. This may include leveraging recent, online federal initiatives on school safety and physical security. (Recommendation 2)
Open
Department of Justice officials noted that the Department does not take a position on recommendations. As of December 2023, DOJ has not provided any updates on its progress in addressing this recommendation.

Child Trafficking: Addressing Challenges to Public Awareness and Survivor Support

GAO-24-106038
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Justice The Attorney General should ensure that OVC develops achievable performance goals for its anti-trafficking programs for children that reflect leading practices, such as being objective, measurable and quantifiable. (Recommendation 3)
Open
As of November 2023, DOJ reported that by July 2024, it would analyze its strategic goals and performance data to establish performance goals for its child-serving anti-trafficking programs. DOJ's Office for Victims of Crime anticipates that these performance goals will be reflected in its fiscal year 2025 funding opportunities focused on anti-trafficking programs for children. While these are positive steps, we will close this recommendation once DOJ has established performance goals for its child-serving anti-trafficking programs.

Missing or Murdered Indigenous Women: New Efforts Are Underway but Opportunities Exist to Improve the Federal Response

GAO-22-104045
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Justice The Attorney General should develop a plan—including key steps, who will achieve them, and by when—for accomplishing ongoing analyses of data in existing federal databases and future data that may be gathered to identify relevant trends in cases of missing or murdered American Indian and Alaska Native women and areas of concern. (Recommendation 1)
Open
DOJ stated in its May 2022 letter that the agency has taken several actions towards addressing this recommendation. For example, in November 2021, the Assistant Attorney General created a steering committee specifically tasked with developing a strategy for conducting ongoing analyses of existing federal databases and future data that may be gathered. In addition, pursuant to Section 4(c) of Executive Order No. 14,053, DOJ, the Department of Interior, and the Department of Health and Human Services will submit a joint report to the President describing the strategy the agencies have developed to conduct and coordinate that data analysis and identify additional resources or other support necessary to implement that strategy. DOJ stated they will provide GAO with supporting documentation once these efforts are finalized. We reached out to DOJ in May, 2023 and are awaiting a copy of the final report on data collection and missing persons, submitted recently to the White House by the three Departments under E.O. 14053.

Federal Software Licenses: Agencies Need to Take Action to Achieve Additional Savings

GAO-24-105717
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Justice The Attorney General should ensure that the Department of Justice consistently tracks software licenses that are currently in use for its widely used licenses by, at a minimum, developing and implementing procedures for tracking license usage. (Recommendation 7)
Open
The Department of Justice agreed with this recommendation. When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Law Enforcement: Federal Agencies Should Improve Reporting and Review of Less-Lethal Force

GAO-22-104470
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Justice The Attorney General should develop standards for its component agencies on the types of less-lethal force that should be reported when used. (Recommendation 3)
Open
Although the department updated its use of force policy in May 2022, the updated policy did not include standards for its component agencies on the types of less-lethal force that should be reported when used. Department of Justice officials stated that as it implements the new policy, the department will continue to examine whether it needs further standards related to less-lethal force. As of August 2023, we have requested additional information from the department on efforts to address this recommendation, as well as any other efforts in place to ensure the consistency in use of force reporting across its component agencies.

Federal Software Licenses: Agencies Need to Take Action to Achieve Additional Savings

GAO-24-105717
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Justice The Attorney General should ensure that the Department of Justice consistently compares the inventories of software licenses that are currently in use with information on purchased licenses to identify opportunities to reduce costs and better inform investment decision making for its widely used licenses on a regular basis. At a minimum, it should develop and implement procedures for comparing the inventories of licenses in use to purchase records. (Recommendation 8)
Open
The Department of Justice agreed with this recommendation. As of March 2024, the department had no comments on the implementation status of this recommendation. Until the department consistently compares their inventories of software licenses in use to known purchases for each of their five most widely used software licenses, it is likely to miss opportunities to reduce costs on duplicative or unnecessary software licenses. We will continue to monitor the department's efforts to fully implement this recommendation.

Bank Secrecy Act: Action Needed to Improve DOJ Statistics on Use of Reports on Suspicious Financial Transactions

GAO-22-105242
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Justice DOJ's Chief Information Officer, Chief Evaluation Officer and Chief Statistical Official should incorporate data on the use of BSA reports into their ongoing efforts to improve DOJ's data collection and infrastructure to determine if there are ways DOJ component agencies that use BSA reports could more consistently collect data described in NDAA section 6201. (Recommendation 1)
Open
DOJ officials reported that since the release of the audit report, representatives from the DOJ's Office of the Chief Information Officer, Evaluation Officer, and Statistical Official have begun to collaborate to identify ways DOJ component agencies that use BSA reports could more consistently collect data described in FY 2021 NDAA Section 6201. However, officials did not report a timeframe for the conclusion of these efforts.

Anti-Money Laundering: Better Information Needed on Effectiveness of Federal Efforts

GAO-24-106301
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Justice The Attorney General should lead an effort, in coordination with the Departments of Homeland Security and the Treasury, to develop a methodology for producing government-wide data on the outcomes of anti-money laundering investigations. This effort could be conducted in conjunction with the interagency working group DOJ was directed to form in the joint explanatory statement accompanying its fiscal year 2023 appropriation. (Recommendation 3)
Open
DOJ agreed with our recommendation. We will update the status of this recommendation when DOJ provides its 180-day letter, which is due in September 2024.

Privacy: Dedicated Leadership Can Improve Programs and Address Challenges

GAO-22-105065
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Justice
Priority Rec.
The Attorney General should incorporate privacy into an organizationwide risk management strategy that includes a determination of risk tolerance. (Recommendation 25)
Open
The Department of Justice did not concur with this recommendation, stating that its existing strategy documents address how it manages privacy risk, including a determination of risk tolerance. As of March 2024, DOJ had provided documents outlining its approach to managing privacy risks. However, they did not include key details such as a discussion of the department's approach to determining privacy risk tolerance, including, for example, factors to be considered and acceptable amounts of risk. According to DOJ officials, while discussions regarding risk thresholds, or the acceptable level of risk for a given activity, have occurred in a number of areas, the department is still working toward developing a department-wide risk tolerance statement. Once the department states that it has taken additional actions, we intend to verify whether implementation has occurred.

Freedom of Information Act: Additional Guidance and Reliable Data Can Help Address Agency Backlogs

GAO-24-106535
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Justice The Attorney General should direct the Director of the Office of Information Policy to issue guidance advising agencies to include elements of effective action plans in their backlog reduction plans. Such elements include identifying and analyzing root causes of their backlog; identifying actions the agency will take to address those root causes; and establishing specific backlog reduction goals, performance measures, and milestones for tracking progress. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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