Story highlights The report found the division gave performance awards to employees under investigation for sexual harassment in three cases

It recommended a system to track all future allegations of misconduct

Washington (CNN) The Justice Department's internal watchdog issued a damning report Thursday outlining what it called "systemic issues" in how it handles sexual harassment allegations levied against department employees.

"Although there were few reported allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct in the Civil Division ... we identified significant weaknesses in the Civil Division's tracking, reporting and investigating of the 11 sexual harassment and misconduct allegations that we reviewed, as well as inconsistencies among penalties imposed for substantiated allegations," the report said.

The inspector general's office initiated a review of the department's policies back in 2015 after the office received a complaint that the Civil Division had failed to properly discipline an attorney for sexual misconduct.

Thursday's report goes on to detail several specific cases of harassment at the department -- including a senior attorney who admitted to "stalking" another attorney and hacking into her personal email account, and another who allegedly "peeped" at a mother nursing in a closed room.

"In substantiated cases for which the available records allowed us to evaluate the imposed penalties, we determined that the outcomes generally did not consist of more than a written reprimand, title change, and reassignment in cases in which the subjects of the allegations were supervisory/senior attorneys," the report found.

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