How Much Confinement for an Article 82 Conviction in the Air Force?
11 Air Force courts-martial from 2016–2025 ended in a conviction under Article 82 (solicitation). The median confinement was 1.5 years, against 4 months for all Air Force convictions in those years.
Understanding Trends in Military Practice · 4 min read
Trends › By Offense › Article 82 › How Much Confinement for an Article 82 C
Short answer: 11 Air Force courts-martial from 2016–2025 ended in a conviction under Article 82 (solicitation). The median confinement was 1.5 years, against 4 months for all Air Force convictions in those years. A punitive discharge followed 82% of the enlisted convictions, compared with 56% Air Force-wide.
How Long Was the Confinement?
10 of the 11 sentences included confinement (91%). The median was 1.5 years. Across all Air Force convictions from 2016 to 2025, the median was 4 months. A quarter of the sentences that included confinement were 2.5 years or longer.
Sentences here are adjudged sentences. They are what the court imposed at trial, before any plea-agreement cap, clemency, or appeal, and each one covers all the charges in the case.
Charges Alongside Solicitation
Article 112a (drug) was the most common other charge, in 5 of the 11 cases. Article 134 (general article) appeared in 4, Article 120b (child sexual abuse) in 3, and Article 92 (orders violation) and Article 107 (false official statement) in 2 each.
Because each sentence covers the whole case, the long terms on this page also reflect these other charges. The records cannot separate the punishment for solicitation from the rest.
Dishonorable Discharges Outnumbered Bad-Conduct Discharges
82% of the convicted enlisted members received a punitive discharge. 6 were dishonorable discharges and 3 were bad-conduct discharges. The share for all Air Force convictions in those years was 56%.
A sentence without a punitive discharge does not rule out a later administrative separation.
General Courts-Martial
6 of the 11 cases (55%) were general courts-martial. That is the court level that can impose long confinement and a dishonorable discharge. The other cases were special courts-martial, where confinement is capped at one year.
Pleas and Forum
10 of the 11 records list the plea. 7 accused pleaded guilty and 3 entered a not-guilty or mixed plea. The contested share, 30%, was about the same as the 31% for all Air Force convictions in those years.
A military judge alone decided 9 cases. Enlisted panels decided 2, or 18% of the cases with the forum listed. No officer panels appear.
Who Was Convicted
10 accused were junior enlisted (E-1 to E-4) and 1 was an NCO (E-5 to E-9). No officers or warrant officers appear. Junior enlisted members made up 66% of all Air Force convictions in those years, so this group was more junior.
Years, Law Changes, and Record Limits
The records show no Article 82 convictions from 2016 through 2019. The 11 cases were tried from January 2020 through September 2024: 3 in 2020 and 2 in each of 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.
The Military Justice Act of 2016 took effect on January 1, 2019, and new prosecution and sentencing rules began for offenses after December 27, 2023. The records give trial dates, not offense dates, so they cannot show which rules applied to each case.
The records do not describe the evidence or the plea terms and do not cover nonjudicial punishment. Air Force records never report plea agreements and rarely list charges in a full acquittal, so this page gives no acquittal figures for this offense.
Dates and sources for the law changes mentioned here: UCMJ change timeline.
How We Counted
Air Force courts-martial tried 2016–2025: ending in a conviction under Article 82 (solicitation) (11 cases), compared with all Air Force convictions in those years.
Source: public court-martial records (Article 140a, UCMJ) in Military Trial Results, data updated October 24, 2026. Definitions, sources, and known gaps: how this data was built. Errors: content@bodiesburied.com.
Related Analysis
- Article 82 (Soliciting): Court-Martial Data and Trends (hub)
- Sentences (hub)
- How Much Confinement for an Article 82 Conviction in the Army? (another service)
- How Much Confinement for an Article 82 Conviction in the Navy-Marine Corps? (another service)
- Article 118 Sentences in the Air Force: Confinement and Discharges, 2016–2025
- Article 128b Sentences in the Air Force: Confinement and Discharges, 2016–2025
- Article 80 Sentences in the Air Force: Confinement and Discharges, 2016–2025
- Search every case in Military Trial Results (members)
About the author. Jocelyn C. Stewart is a retired Army JAG with more than 24 years of trying courts-martial and more than 200 jury trials. She hosts Where All The Bodies Are Buried and runs the Law Office of Jocelyn C. Stewart. This analysis is for education and information only. It is not legal advice, and every case is different.