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# Fewer or More? Military Property Charges at Army Courts-Martial, 2021–2025
- URL: https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/army-article-108-trend-2021-2025/
- Published: 2026-10-28T08:05:32.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-30T08:04:18.000Z
- Description: Army records show 31 courts-martial charging Article 108 (military property) from 2021 to 2025. Only 16% were contested, compared with 30% across the Army. Of convicted enlisted members, 62% received a punitive discharge, lower than the 73% Army-wide.
- Author: Jocelyn C. Stewart
- Tags: Understanding Trends, Article 108, Army

[Trends](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/) › [By Offense](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/by-offense/) › [Article 108](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/article-108-courts-martial/) › Army

**Short answer:** Army records show 31 courts-martial charging Article 108 (military property) from 2021 to 2025\. Only 16% were contested, compared with 30% across the Army. Of convicted enlisted members, 62% received a punitive discharge, lower than the 73% Army-wide.

Based on 31 cases · 2021–2025 · Army records · data updated October 24, 2026

## Most Cases Were Guilty Pleas

Of the 31 cases, 26 were guilty pleas and 5 were contested, meaning the accused pleaded not guilty to at least one charge. That contested share of 16% is lower than the 30% across all Army cases in those years.

Army records note whether a guilty plea came with a plea agreement, though not its terms. Here 25 of the 26 guilty pleas are recorded with an agreement, and 1 has no entry.

Members decided 6% of the cases with the forum listed, all in 2 enlisted panels. A military judge alone decided the other 29\. The accused usually chooses the forum, and most guilty pleas are decided by a military judge alone.

## Most Cases Were in 2021

The cases span February 2021 to August 2025\. There were 15 cases in 2021, 4 in 2022, 3 in 2023, 5 in 2024, and 4 in 2025\. Altogether, that is 1% of the 2,422 Army courts-martial in the period.

The highest yearly count of convictions including Article 108 was 10, in 2021\. That was 2% of Army convictions with offenses listed. From 2022 through 2025, the share was 1% each year. Over 2-year periods, the offense was part of 14 of 891 convictions (2%) in 2021–2022 and 8 of 816 (1%) in 2024–2025, about the same share. Using convictions with offenses listed as the base allows years with more and fewer cases to be compared.

| Year | Convictions incl. Art. 108 | All convictions with offenses listed | Share |
| ---- | -------------------------- | ------------------------------------ | ----- |
| 2021 | 10                         | 467                                  | 2%    |
| 2022 | 4                          | 424                                  | 1%    |
| 2023 | 3                          | 408                                  | 1%    |
| 2024 | 5                          | 428                                  | 1%    |
| 2025 | 3                          | 388                                  | 1%    |

## Charges Filed With Article 108

Only 5 of the 31 cases charged Article 108 alone. Article 121 (larceny) was the article most often charged with it, in 11 cases. Article 92 (orders violation) and Article 128 (assault) appeared in 8 each, Article 134 (general article) in 7, and Article 107 (false official statement) in 5.

A sentence covers every charge in the case, so the sentence figures below include larceny, assault, and other counts along with the property offense.

Army convictions that included Article 108, by year: 2021 10, 2022 4, 2023 3, 2024 5, 2025 310202142022320235202432025

Army convictions that included Article 108, by year

## Most Confinement Terms Were Short

Of the 30 cases ending in a conviction on at least one charge, 27 included confinement (90%). The median confinement was 5 months, slightly lower than the 6-month median for the Army as a whole. A quarter of sentences were 10 months or longer.

Terms of more than one year were uncommon: 3 of 30 convictions (10%), compared with 28% across the Army. Only 1 conviction included 5 years or more. Terms under 6 months were 47% of convictions. Terms of 6 months to 1 year were 33%, higher than the 16% Army-wide.

These are adjudged sentences, as announced at trial and before any plea-agreement cap, clemency, or appeal.

| Adjudged confinement            | Convictions | Share here | Share, the Army as a whole |
| ------------------------------- | ----------- | ---------- | -------------------------- |
| No confinement                  | 3           | 10%        | 17%                        |
| Under 6 months                  | 14          | 47%        | 39%                        |
| 6 months to 1 year              | 10          | 33%        | 16%                        |
| More than 1 year, under 5 years | 2           | 7%         | 20%                        |
| 5 years or more                 | 1           | 3%         | 8%                         |

## General and Special Courts-Martial

A general court-martial can impose any lawful punishment, including long confinement and a dishonorable discharge. A special court-martial is capped at one year of confinement and cannot adjudge a dishonorable discharge.

General courts-martial heard 68% of these cases (21 of 31). At general courts-martial, 90% of convictions included confinement, and the median was 6 months. Special courts-martial heard the other 10 cases. There, 8 of 9 convictions included confinement, and the median was 3 months.

## Fewer Punitive Discharges Than the Army Overall

Among 29 enlisted members convicted, 18 received a bad-conduct or dishonorable discharge (62%), and 2 of those were dishonorable discharges. The Army-wide figure was 73%. The single convicted officer or warrant officer here was not dismissed. A sentence without a punitive discharge does not rule out a later administrative separation.

## A More Senior Mix of Ranks

NCOs made up 55% of the accused, junior enlisted members (E-1 to E-4) 42%, and officers 3%. Across the Army, junior enlisted members were 55% of the accused. This group was more senior than the Army overall.

## Where the Cases Were Heard

Fort Benning and Fort Campbell had 4 cases each. Vilseck (Europe), Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and Fort Leonard Wood each had 3\. Those five installations accounted for 55% of the 31 cases. Larger installations try more cases of every kind, so these counts do not mean any base has a particular problem.

## Rules and Record Limits

Since December 28, 2023, special trial counsel, not commanders, decide whether to prosecute covered offenses such as sexual assault, domestic violence, and murder. When every guilty finding is for an offense after December 27, 2023, the military judge sets the sentence within new parameters. The records give trial dates, not offense dates, so trials from 2024 on include cases under both sets of rules. The services had to begin publishing trial records under Article 140a by December 2020, and Army records here are sparse before 2021.

Only courts-martial appear. Nonjudicial punishment, administrative separations, and cases dropped without action are not included. The records also do not include the evidence or the terms of any plea agreement.

Dates and sources for the law changes mentioned here: [UCMJ change timeline](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/ucmj-change-timeline/).

### How We Counted

Army courts-martial tried 2021–2025 that charged Article 108 (31 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](https://www.bodiesburied.com/military-trial-results/), data updated October 24, 2026\. Definitions, sources, and known gaps: [how this data was built](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/how-the-military-trial-results-data-was-built/). Errors: content@bodiesburied.com.

## Related Analysis

- [Article 108 (Military Property; Loss, Damage, Destruction): Court-Martial Data and Trends](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/article-108-courts-martial/) (hub)
- [Army Courts-Martial: Data and Trends](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/army-courts-martial/) (hub)
- [By Offense](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/by-offense/) (hub)
- [Fewer or More? Military Property Charges at Air Force Courts-Martial, 2016–2025](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/air-force-article-108-trend-2016-2025/) (another service)
- [Is Navy-Marine Corps Military Property Prosecution Rising or Falling? Article 108, 2017–2025](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/navy-marine-corps-article-108-trend-2017-2025/) (another service)
- [Army Article 107 Cases by the Numbers, 2021–2025](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/army-article-107-trend-2021-2025/)
- [Army Article 112a Cases by the Numbers, 2021–2025](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/army-article-112a-trend-2021-2025/)
- [Army Article 115 Cases by the Numbers, 2021–2025](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/army-article-115-trend-2021-2025/)
- [How Much Confinement for an Article 108 Conviction in the Army?](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/army-article-108-sent-2021-2025/)
- [Search every case in Military Trial Results](https://www.bodiesburied.com/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](https://www.ucmj-defender.com/?ref=bodiesburied.com). This analysis is for education and information only. It is not legal advice, and every case is different.