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The Department of Defense (DoD) Definition of Hazing Can Be Improved

• The definition should include qualities that distinguish hazing from other types of abuse and mistreatment.
• It should clarify the role of authority figures and the individual's responsibility.
• It should consider the addition of more objective terms in describing harm, such as "psychological injury" or "extreme mental stress" and provide current examples.

The Effects of and Motivations for Hazing Need to be Addressed

• Among other things, proponents of hazing argue that acts of hazing or harsh initiation rituals contribute to increased liking of, commitment to, and cohesion within the group.
• However, evidence for these different effects is mixed, and research and reports demonstrate that hazing can lead to physical and psychological injuries among hazees.

DoD Does Not Currently Have a Clear Understanding of the Scope of the Hazing Problem

• Once the department has a clear definition of hazing and is able to uniformly track hazing incidents and better assess scope, it can then better determine whether to invest in a DoD-wide database system or whether service-level tracking remains sufficient.
• Elements DoD should consider tracking include victim and perpetrator characteristics, location, circumstances, types of behavior, and incident severity.
• Confidential or anonymous surveys should be used to supplement reported incident databases to give a more-comprehensive assessment of hazing across the services.

Initiation activities have long been part of U.S. military culture as a way to mark significant transitions, status changes, and group membership. However, along with these activities have often come acts of hazing, in which individuals were subjected to abusive and harmful treatment that went beyond sanctioned ceremonies. In recent years, extreme cases of alleged hazing have led to the high-profile deaths of several service members, resulting in renewed interest from the public and Congress in seeing these hazing rituals eliminated from military culture. The Department of Defense (DoD) asked RAND to examine and provide recommendations on current hazing policy and practices across the services. To do so, the researchers examined current DoD and service-specific policy, practices, and data collection related to hazing; reviewed the scientific literature and interviewed leading experts in the field; and reviewed existing DoD incident tracking databases. This report addresses ways to improve the armed forces' definition of hazing, the effects of and motivations for hazing, how the armed forces can prevent and respond to hazing, and how the armed forces can improve the tracking of hazing incidents.

• Chapter One

  Introduction

• Chapter Two

  Defining Hazing

• Chapter Three

  The Effects of and Motivations for Hazing

• Chapter Four

  Preventing and Responding to Hazing in the Armed Forces

• Chapter Five

  Understanding the Prevalence and Characteristics of Hazing Incidents

• Chapter Six

  Conclusions and Recommendations

• Appendix A

  Overview of Study Methodology

• Appendix B

  A Case Study in Hazing Reform

• Appendix C

  Coding of Service-Level Hazing Prevention Training and Education