Military Justice: DOD and the Coast Guard Need to Improve Their Capabilities to Assess Racial and Gender Disparities
Abstract
The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) was established to provide a statutory framework that promotes fair administration of military justice. Every active-duty servicemember is subject to the UCMJ, with more than 258,000individuals disciplined from fiscal years2013-2017, out of more than 2.3 million unique active-duty servicemembers. A key principle of the UCMJ is that a fair and just system of military law can foster a highly disciplined force. House Report 115-200, accompanying a bill for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018, included a provision for GAO to assess the extent that disparities may exist in the military justice system. This report assesses the extent to which (1) the military services collect and maintain consistent race, ethnicity, and gender information for servicemembers investigated and disciplined for UCMJ violations that can be used to assess disparities, and (2) there are racial and gender disparities in the military justice system, and whether disparities have been studied by DOD. GAO analyzed data from the investigations, military justice, and personnel databases from the military services, including the Coast Guard, from fiscal years 2013-2017 and interviewed agency officials.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 30, 2019
- Accession Number
- AD1154688
Entities
People
- Aime M. Lesser
- Brenda S. Farrell
- Christopher Allison
- Christy D. Smith
- Clarice Ransom
- Dae B. Park
- Kimberly C. Seay
- Parul Aggarwal
- Preston Timms
- Renee Brown
- Samuel J. Portnow
- Schuyler Vanorsale
- Serena C. Lo
- Vincent M. Buquicchio
- Won Lee
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office