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Military commanders have the power to detain service members ahead of trial through a process known as pretrial confinement. Commanders consider whether the suspect may flee or reoffend and if less severe restrictions can keep the person out of trouble. An investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune into the Army’s use of pretrial confinement found that soldiers who were detained weren’t always the ones accused of the most serious crimes.

Below are examples of how a soldier accused of sexual assault and another accused of drug offenses were treated differently.


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Ren Larson was a data journalist at The Texas Tribune from March 2020 through December 2022. Before joining the Tribune, she reported on elections, immigration, environmental contamination and wildfires...

Vianna Davila is a reporter with the ProPublica/Texas Tribune investigative unit. Previously, she was the editor of The Seattle Times’ Project Homeless initiative, which examines the causes and effects...

Lexi Churchill is a reporter for the ProPublica-Texas Tribune Investigative Initiative. Before joining ProPublica, Lexi interned at CNBC, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Columbia Daily Tribune and KCUR...