Is Air Force Article 87b Prosecution Rising or Falling? Article 87b, 2016–2025
The Air Force records hold 11 courts-martial from 2016–2025 that charged Article 87b (offenses against correctional custody, numbered since 2019), all tried between January 2020 and May 2025. Every accused was a junior enlisted member.
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Trends › By Offense › Article 87b › Air Force
Short answer: The Air Force records hold 11 courts-martial from 2016–2025 that charged Article 87b (offenses against correctional custody, numbered since 2019), all tried between January 2020 and May 2025. Every accused was a junior enlisted member. 73% of convicted enlisted members received a punitive discharge, compared with 56% across the Air Force, and only 20% of cases with a plea recorded were contested, compared with 48%.
Junior Enlisted Members Only
All of the accused in these 11 cases were junior enlisted members (E-1 to E-4). No NCOs and no officers appear. Across all Air Force cases in those years, junior enlisted members were 62% of the accused.
4 cases were general courts-martial and 7 were special courts-martial. The general court-martial share was 36%, lower than the 51% for the rest of the Air Force. A general court-martial can impose any lawful sentence, including a dishonorable discharge. A special court-martial caps confinement at one year and cannot impose a dishonorable discharge.
Discharges Were More Common Than Air Force-Wide
8 of the 11 convicted enlisted members received a punitive discharge (73%): 6 bad-conduct discharges and 2 dishonorable discharges. The share for the rest of the Air Force was 56%.
A punitive discharge is part of the sentence at trial. A sentence without one does not rule out a later administrative separation, which these records do not track.
Every Sentence Included Confinement
All 11 sentences in the records included confinement (100%). The median confinement was 4 months, the same as the 4 months for the Air Force as a whole. A quarter of the confinement terms were 1 year or longer.
These are adjudged sentences, as announced at trial. They come before any plea-agreement cap, clemency, or appeal, and each one covers every charge in the case, not Article 87b alone.
Article 87b Was Never Charged Alone
Each of the 11 cases charged at least one other article. Article 86 (AWOL) appeared in 8 cases and Article 112a (drug) in 7. Article 113 (misbehavior of a sentinel before 2019; drunken or reckless driving since), Article 121 (larceny), and Article 107 (false official statement) each appeared in 2.
Pleas and Who Decided Guilt
10 of the 11 records list a plea. 8 were guilty pleas and 2 were contested. A contested case is one in which the accused pleads not guilty to at least one charge. The contested share, 20%, is lower than the 48% for the Air Force as a whole.
A military judge alone decided guilt in 9 cases. Members heard 2 cases (18%), and both were enlisted panels. No officer panel appears.
How the Yearly Count Changed
The records show 0 cases from 2016 through 2019. The yearly count was 2 in 2020, 1 in 2021, 2 in 2022, 4 in 2023, 1 in 2024, and 1 in 2025. Convictions including Article 87b reached their highest yearly number, 4, in 2023.
As a share of Air Force convictions, the article was part of 6 of 494 convictions in 2023–2025 (1%). The highest yearly share was 3%, in 2023. The shares use convictions with the offenses listed, so years with more or fewer cases overall stay comparable.
| Year | Convictions incl. Art. 87b | All convictions with offenses listed | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 0 | 205 | 0% |
| 2017 | 0 | 294 | 0% |
| 2018 | 0 | 287 | 0% |
| 2019 | 0 | 271 | 0% |
| 2020 | 2 | 186 | 1% |
| 2021 | 1 | 202 | 0% |
| 2022 | 2 | 208 | 1% |
| 2023 | 4 | 152 | 3% |
| 2024 | 1 | 173 | 1% |
| 2025 | 1 | 169 | 1% |
Limits of These Records
Air Force records rarely list the charges in a case that ends in a full acquittal, so this page gives no acquittal rate for Article 87b. The records also never report plea agreements, give trial dates rather than offense dates, and do not describe the evidence. Matters handled by nonjudicial punishment or administrative action are not included.
Dates and sources for the law changes mentioned here: UCMJ change timeline.
How We Counted
Air Force courts-martial tried 2016–2025 that charged Article 87b (11 cases). The trend line uses convictions whose records list the offenses found, by trial year.
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 87b (Offenses Against Correctional Custody, Numbered Since 2019): Court-Martial Data and Trends (hub)
- Air Force Courts-Martial: Data and Trends (hub)
- By Offense (hub)
- Air Force Article 109 Cases by the Numbers, 2016–2025
- Air Force Article 113 Cases by the Numbers, 2021–2025
- Air Force Article 115 Cases by the Numbers, 2021–2025
- Air Force Article 121 Cases by the Numbers, 2016–2025
- Air Force Article 128b Cases by the Numbers, 2016–2025
- Air Force Article 131b Cases by the Numbers, 2016–2025
- Air Force Article 134 Cases by the Numbers, 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.