Do you think race has an impact on the level of punishments administered during Article 15s?

2019-08-21T18:48:08-04:00

I'm doing a research proposal for a masters class that would analyze whether or not race has an impact on Article 15 punishments. Does anyone have an anecdotes or statistics that could confirm or deny this idea?

Response by CW4 Craig Urban made Aug 21 at 2019 7:27 PM

2019-08-21T19:27:12-04:00

I do not think so in today's army. Only from previous experience. I received one in Germany for driving one KM over the speed limit. I received a verbal from my CO as a SP/5. He was smiling as he gave me the verbal. We are too diversified now days.

Response by CPT Jack Durish made Aug 21 at 2019 7:38 PM

2019-08-21T19:38:55-04:00

A damned interesting question. I don't have anything to contribute, but started searching the Internet to see if there was any extant data. It took me about 2 minutes to come up with my first discovery, a piece of anecdotal information. I suggest you continue the search while you wait to see if anyone else on RP has anything for you...
https://www.quora.com/How-is-racism-dealt-with-in-the-US-military

How is racism dealt with in the US military? - Quora

Racism is dealt with swiftly and harshly, unless it’s anti-white racism, then there is no real one answer. It gets interesting when you’re on a ship where a significant amount of the crew is Filipino and they start getting racist, or at least discriminating against the white people on board… and you don’t get any support because “anti-white racism doesn’t exist.” This isn’t always the case. I know some leaders who do treat it all equally.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 21 at 2019 7:42 PM

2019-08-21T19:42:25-04:00

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/05/31/this-report-says-black-and-hispanic-service-members-are-more-likely-to-face-trial/

This report says black and Hispanic service members are more likely to face trial

What data is available shows a bias against minorities in courts-martial, but the Government Accountability Office thinks the services should do a better job keeping track.

Response by CSM Darieus ZaGara made Aug 21 at 2019 7:43 PM

2019-08-21T19:43:11-04:00

After 31 years active duty I never saw evidence that race impacted either way. I have worked with Commanders of all races at all levels up to General Officer, all strictly went by the facts in evidence. Thank you for your service.

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Aug 21 at 2019 8:00 PM

2019-08-21T20:00:16-04:00

https://search.aol.com/aol/search?q=race%20nonjudicial%20punishment%20military&s_it=loki-tb-sb

I found these....

race%20nonjudicial%20punishment%20military - AOL Search Results

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Aug 21 at 2019 8:01 PM

2019-08-21T20:01:23-04:00

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=race+military+nonjudicial+punishment&btnG=

And these....

Sorry...

... but your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Aug 21 at 2019 8:02 PM

2019-08-21T20:02:22-04:00

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=6%2C33&q=race+military+nonjudicial+punishment&btnG=

These also....

Sorry...

... but your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Aug 21 at 2019 8:03 PM

2019-08-21T20:03:14-04:00

https://search.aol.com/aol/search?q=lexis%20nexis%20race%20military%20nonjudicial%20punishment&s_it=loki-tb-sb

Then I tried it this way as well....

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Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Aug 21 at 2019 8:04 PM

2019-08-21T20:04:10-04:00

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/government_public/resources/military_lawyers_conference/military_lawyers_coordinating_committee/

You might wanna look up their stuff....

Military Lawyers Coordinating Committee

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Aug 21 at 2019 8:04 PM

2019-08-21T20:04:44-04:00

https://search.aol.com/aol/search?q=lexis%20nexis&s_it=loki-tb-sb

Look through these....

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Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Aug 21 at 2019 8:05 PM

2019-08-21T20:05:23-04:00

https://search.aol.com/aol/search?q=lexis%20nexis%20legal%20research&s_it=loki-tb-sb

And these....

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Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Aug 21 at 2019 8:05 PM

2019-08-21T20:05:58-04:00

https://search.aol.com/aol/search?q=sociology%20military%20law%20race&s_it=loki-tb-sb

These looked promising....

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The Pioneer Fund is a controversial American non-profit= /A foundation= that=20 provides grants for research in heredity and human personality = differences, as=20 well as funding for groups advocating immigration=20 reduction.Established in 1937 by several prominent eugenicists, the fund = states=20 that emphasis is placed on projects not likely to be financed by other=20 institutions partly ...

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Aug 21 at 2019 8:06 PM

2019-08-21T20:06:27-04:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_sociology

And this in particular....

Military sociology - Wikipedia

Military sociology is a subfield within sociology. It corresponds closely to C. Wright Mills's summons to connect the individual world to broader social structures.[1][2] Military sociology aims toward the systematic study of the military as a social group rather than as a military organization. This highly specialized sub-discipline examines issues related to service personnel as a distinct group with coerced collective action based on shared...

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Aug 21 at 2019 8:14 PM

2019-08-21T20:14:34-04:00

https://search.aol.com/aol/search?q=military%20race%20influence%20article%2015&s_it=loki-tb-sb

Then I tried it this way....

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Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Aug 21 at 2019 8:15 PM

2019-08-21T20:15:21-04:00

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=military+race+influence+article+15&btnG=

This way also....

Sorry...

... but your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Aug 21 at 2019 8:16 PM

2019-08-21T20:16:44-04:00

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=6%2C33&q=military+race+influence+article+15&oq=

Then I switched from articles in Google Search to the case law option for the same thing....

Sorry...

... but your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Aug 21 at 2019 8:18 PM

2019-08-21T20:18:27-04:00

https://search.aol.com/aol/search?q=association%20military%20attorneys%20or%20lawyers&s_it=loki-tb-sb

These were thought-provoking....

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Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Aug 21 at 2019 8:18 PM

2019-08-21T20:18:54-04:00

http://jaa.org/

As was this....

Home

The Judge Advocates Association is a national legal society that was organized in 1943 by a small group of Army attorneys in Washington, D.C.Our membership now includes active duty, reserve, and guard judge advocates, law school students, and retired judge advocates from all of the armed services.The Judge Advocates Association is the only national professional legal organization exclusively dedicated to the advancement of Judge Advocates and...

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Aug 21 at 2019 8:19 PM

2019-08-21T20:19:46-04:00

https://search.aol.com/aol/search?q=legal%20sociology&s_it=loki-tb-sb

Then I tried it from this perspective....

legal%20sociology - AOL Search Results

The sociology of law (or legal sociology) is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies. Some see sociology of law as belonging "necessarily" to the field of sociology, but others tend to consider it a field of research caught up between the disciplines of law and sociology.

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Aug 21 at 2019 8:20 PM

2019-08-21T20:20:14-04:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_of_law

This looked good....

Sociology of law - Wikipedia

The sociology of law (or legal sociology) is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies.[1] Some see sociology of law as belonging "necessarily" to the field of sociology,[2] but others tend to consider it a field of research caught up between the disciplines of law and sociology.[3] Still others regard it neither a subdiscipline of sociology nor a branch of legal studies but as a...

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Aug 21 at 2019 8:34 PM

2019-08-21T20:34:08-04:00

I didn't mean to bombard you with so much, however, what you'd asked obv piqued my curiosity, that's why it got my mental gears spinning...I was just curious...what was the specific class title? For what major? Did you eventually want to go PhD at all? Law, possibly (incl what's termed an LLM, a masters attorneys do after doing their JD)? I'd be most interested to hear more, no rush, whenever convenient, hope all that stuff might at least be of some possible use, if anything else occurs to me, I'll try to send it also...quite interesting, most decidedly intellectually offbeat question, honest....

Response by LTJG Richard Bruce made Aug 21 at 2019 9:21 PM

2019-08-21T21:21:51-04:00

Too many variables. First you must track the disciplinary history of the command, details of each Mast, and context of the event. Even knowing this may be meaningless. Some units may have members that never misbehave. Others units may be a dumping ground of trouble makers. Must take racial demographics into account. Some units may have a large population of minorities. In these units only minorities will be punished. Must consider if unit is away from home for long periods of time or often. People who have a stable routine and home life usually don't misbehave. Must take into the age profile of an unit. The young usually receive more Art 15's. Rank structure of unit influences punishment. A group of senior minority officers will receive almost no Art 15's, but a group of 18yr old minority non-rates will receive the most.

To write a meaningful research paper, you must better define the thesis. Plus, never use anecdotes. One-sided undocumented unverifiable stories.

Response by LtCol Robert Quinter made Aug 21 at 2019 11:38 PM

2019-08-21T23:38:16-04:00

Don't have any statistics but I can remember a lot that I chaired and the offence they were for, in three units, but can't remember race. Gave an Art 15 to one of my WMs and can't remember her race or what she looked like.
I don't believe it's a case of failing memory, just remember most looked scared out of their wits, race wasn't important.

Response by CAPT Kevin B. made Aug 22 at 2019 12:12 AM

2019-08-22T00:12:11-04:00

Back in the day, race, gender, and religion affected everything. Punishment, promotion, assignments, harassment level, you name it. Whenever I see a current article that says some group is whatever, I never see an analysis that deals with the "as compared to what". If you want your paper to be worthwhile, make sure it's in context vs. narrowly stated. Back in the day, "examples" were made more frequently on the minorities hanging out on the fantail. By the time I punched out after my last Skipper job and sitting lots of promotion boards over time, I've seen the continuum of change. Much less bias can occur without getting caught. There are those who still insist on getting caught, especially those who won't keep their pistol in their holster. Two reasons we likely see less now is more diversity among the grades. More voices in the grapevine pointing out bias. Second is the extreme process and regulation stuff that some would argue goes too far. Analytics that figures lie/liar's figure types peddle. There's still bias but it has been driven more underground so you have to have sharper senses to see it.

Response by SGT Dave Tracy made Aug 22 at 2019 9:33 AM

2019-08-22T09:33:50-04:00

No idea. Most guys with Article 15s I knew were a reflection of the population from whence they came, but that means nothing.

I would add however that for a Masters level course--and if this research proposal leads to a published paper-- for me, I'd generally skip anecdotal evidence save for any personal experience I myself were witness to, and stick to well supported empirical evidence from credible sources. Asking people how they feel about the possibility of racial bias doesn't make for strong evidence of anything and can lead to a type of representative bias leading one to think that the results of asking for a representative sample (random or not) of opinion reflects what the actual facts are, when in fact, empirical data may not support what people believe to be true.

At the very least, be judicious and limited in your use of opinion.

Response by SFC Ralph E Kelley made Aug 22 at 2019 9:50 AM

2019-08-22T09:50:38-04:00

I really don't believe one-off anecdotes have a place in your proposal unless your research is to determine bias. The statistics are out there, so why not put an inquiry to DA to access Army-wide UCMJ records. The IG can most likely be the source for your database query. You will have to explain your purpose to the IG - probably submitting the request in writing.

Response by CSM Richard StCyr made Aug 22 at 2019 3:51 PM

2019-08-22T15:51:23-04:00

You can get quite a bit of data from your S-1 and the battalion EEO rep. There was a quarterly report called the QNSR that tracked awards and punishments by rank structure and by ethnicity. This was very helpful in doing trend analysis to help gauge the EO climate. If you paid attention to it you could nip stuff in the bud.

A cautionary note on UCMJ action and statistical data. Just because a unit has a low UCMJ rate doesn't necessarily indicate they are highly disciplined outfit. I can think of one unit that the reason was indicative of the leaders allowing anything to go and only administering UCMJ for things like Drug abuse and DUI's. Items that had mandatory reporting and action and were visible to higher echelons. Conversely there was another unit in Germany where the leaders issued UCMJ for anything and everything.

Response by SSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 22 at 2019 6:39 PM

2019-08-22T18:39:12-04:00

I would certainly hope not because if there was that would indicate systemic bias/racism amongst the Officers currently serving. Since Officers are bound by Manual of Courts Martial limiting maximum punishment available at an article 15, there would more likely be instances of individual bias but not systemic given the diversity of officers.

Response by Sgt Bob Buster Adcock made Sep 13 at 2019 12:46 PM

2019-09-13T12:46:19-04:00

It wasn't in my case. Four days UA got me reduced to Private and restricted to the area for 90 days and forfeiture of pay and allowances for that period. Both the Colonel and I were white. It did teach me a valuable lesson.

Response by SSG Jeffery Payne made Sep 16 at 2019 1:09 AM

2019-09-16T01:09:53-04:00

In all the combat units I was in. Everybody was OD green. Race didn't matter, if you break the rules, you pay the price. I don't know about training units.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 20 at 2019 2:55 PM

2019-10-20T14:55:31-04:00

You should contact your BDE EOA. That individual has reports broken down by ethnic groups for awards, promotions, UCMJ, and others.

However, In my opinion. I don’t believe that race has a factor at all. I’ve only seen UCMJ punishment given based off of facts. Race does not go into the character of the soldier. If the soldier is a shitty person that then they’re a shitty person.

Response by SSG Jeffery Payne made Oct 21 at 2019 1:58 AM

2019-10-21T01:58:57-04:00

I always told every soldier that came to my platoon, their is no color here. Does not matter if you black, white, yellow or anything in between. As far as I am concerned you are OD Green. You will be treated the same way as I treat everyone. If you get in trouble AR15 and if you can convince me you are innocent (or I know you are innocent) I will fight it with you all the way. If you are guilty, I will tell you to take what's coming. Learn from it and I won't hold it against you. Clean slate. My guys know if they are innocent I have there back. We work as a unit not as a individual. It works to...I have gotten more work from them and had fewer problems. They would police after each other. I learned if you treat a soldier like a solider and not have favorites you get loyalty, quality work and if the balloon goes up I have well trained, hard working, soliders that get the job done.

Response by PO2 Joseph Fast made Oct 21 at 2019 8:58 PM

2019-10-21T20:58:33-04:00

Just remembers statistics don't always prove something. My second to last command before I got out, we had two males who did some things they shouldn't have to some people who shouldn't have had said things done to them. Statistically speaking, you could look at the punishment records and see that in our workshop, black males had the highest rate of receiving the harshest punishments, but that has everything to do with the crimes committed over the color of skin they had. Victim crimes were taken way more seriously than than the victim-less crimes. Sure, it looks racist on the outside, 2 white males and 1 black male had a 30 days restriction while 1 black male lost rank, money, and was put on restriction and another black male lost rank, money, put in jail, then separated with a dishonorable discharge. It looks racist.... until you understand the circumstances of the crimes each individual committed and whether there was a victim or not and how young that victim was.

Sometimes when you're looking for data, you're going to find it. Just make sure it's based on what you claim before you say it is. Many things can actually be explained through things that are not racist or sexist, like the wage gap. Sure, the average woman earns 75ish cents to every dollar the average man earns, but overtime hours, difficulty of job, danger of the job isn't taken into account. When we factor in punishments for people, we have to factor in the person themselves, the individuals, not just their skin color, because cultural differences will account for the differences. Asians tend to be more disciplined than white people, so I wouldn't doubt that white people (per capita) were more likely to suffer punishments than Asians. You can follow this line of reasoning with other skin colors.

Response by MSgt Allen Chandler made Oct 29 at 2019 6:20 PM

2019-10-29T18:20:16-04:00

I don't know if rank plays a part in article 15 punishment, but I think it should.
The higher your rank the more is expected of you both on the job and in your personal conduct. You're not just a leader, you're expected to show an example in all parts of your life. If a private / seamen / airman gets drunk and doesn't show up to work, he should be held accountable. How much more so for a Top Sergeant or officer.

Response by CPL Ant Jim made Nov 3 at 2019 11:09 AM

2019-11-03T11:09:51-05:00

I believe race has an issue on article 15 punshiment! But the army has enuff has enuff senstive training, that the race issue is circumnavigated & mos race is inserted! I was in a consolidated motorpool and constantly seen mos discrimination and maxium punishment vs. corrective training at platoon level. Seen the 91b make a mistake and they were corrected an platoon level, well in a motorpool there is 5 91b sgt 4 91b ssg , an atleast 2 or 3 91b/ sfc. So they going to protect they mos, bc if ever been in army if 1 person is guilty at is guilty! So the 91b used that if a pvt 91b is guilty were guilty they all look guilty! But in the consolodiated motorpool there is more than 1 mos, but not equal representation! 94 f nvg repairer or 94 e radio repairer ' highest rant in motorpool most of time is e4, no sgt or higher representation! Ususlly have to be counseled my another mos sgt! So most they going to get written for article 15 for simple infractions an bullied an paper work trumped up, sone1 has to be sacrifical lamb for good of motorpool! A civilisn example of this is going to a mechanic you dont know' so they trump up your prices yada yada ' just bc you dont know. An thats how the article 15 are written up in motorpools an cmd/ltc is not given complete information! An max punisment is suggested by motorpool leadership ... Yah race is defientialy involed in article 15 , just have so much sensitive training that learn ways to circumnavigate it !