The Marines are changing the process for reporting and documenting offenses committed by officers and enlisteds to capture more demographic information – both for accused and victim. Details, as outlined in a policy update, provide specific instructions regarding electronic preparation and correction of reports involving actions that trigger punishments.
Commanding generals who impose non-judicial punishments upon members are now required to provide copies of the Unit Punishment Book (UPB) entries they have prepared. Recipients, in turn, must be given the opportunity to respond. All such entries would be then submitted to the local personnel administration center.
As reported by Military.com, concerns centered around limited oversight of non-judicial punishments (NJP) which are typically low-level offenses. With the change, the Marine Corps is following suit with similar policies now in place in the Air Force and Navy – driven by language in the 2022 defense spending bill – in an effort to get a better picture of racial disparities in the administration of punishments.
Updated UBP instructions explicitly say to get demographic info on the victim: “Fill in victim demographic information, matching the best entry from personnel records (for military members) or the victim’s self-identification.”
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