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Posted on Aug 21, 2019
CPT Air Defense Artillery Officer
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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?
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Responses: 35
CSM Darieus ZaGara
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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.
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CPL Ant Jim
CPL Ant Jim
6 y
it nots so much that the commanders let race impact ' its the people writing the and suggesting the article 15 thst needs commanders signature to approave the article 15! Lets say the ltc is a commsnder the writers of the suggested article 15 are going to trump up chargers ' so that ltc has to say do i defend femsle bc im a femsle or max punish her bc itll look like giving her break as a female ! Same actions if blk commander or hispanic csm .... Thats just how it is when you have people at lower level have a mental block an convinced they self to be threanted by minority races or female commander. If you were to look at most article 15 writings, the nco 110% time will never admitt their errors that led to sm article 15' will not come up with solution for punsihment, and the fill out the follow thru action on the negstive counseling! The way article 15 works is writer writes article 15 and recommends ucmj! Does not explain whole story or what punishment should be! But the writer sweets out during readin an hopes command punishment is max across board ' so whew yah solider is super complete ! The writer wants max punishment' but when they have to supervise extra duty for 14 days or 45days from 6-12 7 days , they will complain before the extra dutier before, that this is unfair to the extra dutier an cmd/ltc shouldnt have been so harsh !
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CSM Darieus ZaGara
CSM Darieus ZaGara
6 y
I am sorry that you have this experience. I have never heard of or seen runaway pun sidemen this where evidence is trumped up. It is hard to fake evidence and commanders are not stupid.there are also appeals which go even higher to folks with even more experience. Anyway, I cannot question your experiences, but I have never seen, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Male, Female and on and on. CPL Ant Jim
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SFC Retention Operations Nco
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CPT Air Defense Artillery Officer
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Good source, thanks man!
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SSG 25 Id Battle Nco
SSG (Join to see)
>1 y
How’s that prove anything other than these soldiers are more likely to fight their Art 15s? Nothing against you, it was a good read but I feel like how general the verbiage was might be leaving out crucial parts about why it is.
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SFC Retention Operations Nco
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>1 y
SSG (Join to see) didn't ask me to prove anything, he asked for statistics and starting points. If you're looking for proof you can look at the GAO data the article references. The point of an actual article of news isn't to convince you, it's to inform you. This is the difference of politics vs polemic.
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PO2 Joseph Fast
PO2 Joseph Fast
>1 y
Be careful with articles. When I was in grade school, I went to an all black school. Black children were more likely to get suspensions than white children, but it was due to their actions and the level of disruptions they caused, not because they were black. Hell, I got suspensions because black kids beat my ass simply for being white.

If you want causation and correlation, you must make sure you understand why their is correlation. Don't blame it on skin color when you can blame it on cultural differences.
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CPT Jack Durish
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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
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Do you think race has an impact on the level of punishments administered during Article 15s?
CW4 Craig Urban
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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.
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LTJG Richard Bruce
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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.
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CPL Ant Jim
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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 !
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MSgt Allen Chandler
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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.
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PO2 Joseph Fast
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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.
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SSG Jeffery Payne
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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.
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SFC Healthcare Specialist (Combat Medic)
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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.
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