An Evaluation of the
Department of Defense’s
Excess Property Program
Law Enforcement Agency Equipment
Acquisition Policies, Findings, and Options
Aaron C. Davenport, Jonathan William Welburn, Andrew Lauland,
Annelise Pietenpol, Marc Robbins, Erin Rebhan, Patricia Boren,
K. Jack Riley
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iii
Preface
Section 1048 of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) requires an
evaluation of the Law Enforcement Support Ofce (LESO) program, which is run
by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and provides excess Department of Defense
(DoD) equipment—everything from printers to rifes to airplanes—to state and fed-
eral law enforcement agencies (LEAs). Te NDAA requires DoD to select a federally
funded research and development center to review the program. RAND’s National
Defense Research Institute (NDRI) was asked to undertake that review, documented
in this report. Tis evaluation builds upon previous work RAND researchers com-
pleted for DoD in 2016, in accordance with the fscal year (FY) 2017 NDAA mandate
for additional analysis of the LESO program.
Tis research was sponsored by the Defense Logistics Agency and conducted
within the Acquisition and Technology Policy Center of the RAND National Defense
Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by
the Ofce of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staf, the Unifed Combatant Com-
mands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence
Community.
For more information on the Acquisition and Technology Policy Center, see
www.rand/nsrd/ndri/centers/atp or contact the director (contact information is
provided on the webpage).