# Military Justice Transparency Act

This bill requires the military to start tracking and publicly reporting data about racial, ethnic, and gender disparities in how service members are treated by the military justice system. Essentially, it's about shining a light on whether certain groups of soldiers are being investigated, punished, or convicted at different rates than others.

Here's what the military would have to do: Starting within six months of the bill passing, each branch of the armed forces must record the race, ethnicity, and gender of both victims and accused service members in every investigation. They also have to track this information for non-judicial punishments (quick disciplinary actions given by commanders) and court-martial convictions, breaking down the data by type of punishment, offense, and outcome. All of this information would then be published in the military's annual justice reports that Congress receives, making it available to the public.

The bill also requires the Secretary of Defense to brief Congress on their strategy for addressing any disparities they find, and it asks the Government Accountability Office (an independent watchdog agency) to investigate what racial disparities exist in military justice and report back within a year. This is essentially a fact-finding mission to determine if service members of different races or genders are being treated differently by the military court system.

For everyday people, this matters because it affects how military service members are treated and whether the military justice system is fair to everyone. If disparities are found, this transparency could lead to reforms that make the system more equitable. For military families and service members themselves, it means there will be better oversight of military courts and potentially more accountability if certain groups are being treated unfairly.

Military Justice Transparency Act

Jones, Mondaire

Military Justice Transparency Act This bill requires the Department of Defense (DOD) to take specified actions to further detect and address racial, ethnic, and gender disparities in the military justice system. Specifically, DOD must require each military department to <ul> <li>record the race, ethnicity, and gender of the victim and the accused for each investigation of an offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ);</li> <li>record the race ethnicity, and gender of each individual against whom non-judicial punishment is imposed under the UCMJ and set forth information separately for each type of non-judicial punishment imposed;</li> <li>record the race, ethnicity, and gender of each individual convicted in a court-martial and set forth such information separately by the type of court-martial, the offense involved, and the case outcome; and</li> <li>publish specified data in the annual military justice reports. </li> </ul> Not later than 30 days after the date on which the annual military justice reports for FY2022 have been submitted, DOD must brief Congress on its strategy to detect and address racial, ethnic, and gender disparities in the military justice system. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) must report on its findings regarding racial disparities in the military justice system, any steps being taken by DOD to address such disparities, and the status of implementation by each military department of recommendations set forth in the GAO report titled Military Justice: DOD and the Coast Guard Need to Improve Their Capabilities to Assess Racial and Gender Disparities (GAO-19-344).