DoD's Inspector begins evaluating Navy's suicide prevention effort, plans to visit Bremerton base

Peiyu Lin, Kitsap Sun
·2 min read
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The Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, based in Alexandria, Virginia, which audits, evaluates, and investigates DoD's programs and operations, plans to perform a site visit to Naval Base Kitsap Bremerton as part of its evaluation on the Navy's effort to prevent and respond to suicides.
The Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, based in Alexandria, Virginia, which audits, evaluates, and investigates DoD's programs and operations, plans to perform a site visit to Naval Base Kitsap Bremerton as part of its evaluation on the Navy's effort to prevent and respond to suicides.

Editor's Note: The story covers suicide in the military community. Service members and veterans who are having thoughts of suicide can call 988 and press 1, text 838255, or chat online at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat to contact the Veterans Crisis Line for confidential support.

The Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DoD OIG) has plans to perform a site visit to Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton as part of their evaluation — which began in February — to look into the Navy's suicide prevention and response efforts.

In a program announcement issued by DoD OIG, which is the Pentagon's arm to audit, evaluate and investigate DoD's programs and operations to ensure integrity, the Alexandria, Virginia-based office on Feb. 27 said it planned to begin the evaluation of the U.S. Navy’s efforts to prevent and respond to incidents of deaths by suicide, suicide attempts, and suicidal ideation among members of the Navy assigned to sea duty or shore duty in February.

The office will perform site visits to Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton, Norfolk Naval Air Station in Virginia, Naval Base San Diego in California, and Naval Station Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and the office may identify additional locations during the evaluation, according to the announcement.

It is unknown when an inspector will visit the base, as well as when the office will complete the evaluation and release the results.

To protect the integrity of the evaluation process, DoD OIG doesn't preemptively release site visit dates or any findings before the evaluation is complete, Mollie Halpern, a spokesperson at DoD OIG told Kitsap Sun in an email.

"We have no timeline for results as the length of the evaluation depends on many variables," Halpern said. "Additionally, we do not disclose our tactics, techniques or procedures used to perform our evaluations."

Once the evaluation is completed, the evaluation results will be released on the office's website, Halpern said.

In 2023, there were four confirmed suicides by active duty military members in Kitsap County, the Kitsap Sun previously reported.

The suicide numbers in the Navy have increased in the past few years. In 2022, 71 active components in the Navy died by suicide, which is more than the 59 people in 2021 and 65 people in 2020. The unadjusted suicide rate per 100,000 active components in the Navy, which is 20.6 in 2022, is also higher than 17 in 2021 and 19 in 2020, according to DoD's Annual Report on Suicide in the Military: Calendar Year (CY) 2022, released in October.

Coverage of suicides by active duty military members in Kitsap County:

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Pentagon's Inspector plans to visit NBK to evaluate Navy's suicide prevention efforts