The Coast Guard has released a 17-point action plan aimed at preventing sexual assault and improving support for survivors, putting specific deadlines and measures of success behind a broader strategy unveiled earlier this year.
The Sexual Assault Prevention, Response, and Recovery Action Plan (SAPRR) assigns a lead office, completion date and performance measure to each of its 17 actions, which fall under four areas: prevention, response, recovery and accountability.
The plan is the latest step in a Coast Guard reform effort that accelerated after the 2023 disclosure of Operation Fouled Anchor, a previously undisclosed internal investigation completed in 2020 that examined 102 allegations of sexual assault at the Coast Guard Academy dating from 1990 to 2006. The investigation concluded that the academy often mishandled the cases.
After media reports brought the investigation to public attention in June 2023, the Coast Guard commandant ordered a 90-day review of the service’s policies, practices and culture surrounding sexual assault and harassment. That review led the commandant in November 2023 to direct 33 initial reform actions covering areas including training, the academy, accountability, victim support, and information and data.
The reform effort has since expanded. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in January that the Coast Guard had identified 49 actions to address sexual misconduct since July 2023 and had completed 32 of them as of September 2025. Coast Guard officials attributed delays in completing the remaining actions in part to their complexity and transitions in service leadership.
The GAO found that the Coast Guard had taken steps toward improving its response to sexual misconduct but said “gaps in key areas may affect its ability to maintain progress and achieve lasting results.”
Among other recommendations, the GAO called on the Coast Guard to maintain an active team overseeing the reforms and develop an implementation plan identifying “key milestones, deliverables, and updated time frames” for outstanding actions.
The new SAPRR Action Plan appears to address some of those concerns by assigning responsibility, deadlines and measures of success to each of its 17 actions.
