Waivers for criminals & felons?!

Waivers for criminals and felons. No waiver for my son who is an AP, A-, 3 varsity sports , 2 noms, color vision DQ'd student who will be going to a top "Plan B" college.

Best of luck to the sons and daughters who will have to lead these losers with waivers:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/21/military.waivers/index.html

Those "losers" are volunteering to put their lives on the line to defend their country. They're going in knowing they will have dangerous jobs that are far from glamorous. Most importantly they can tell the color of something when they shoot at it(kind of important) and wont have any vision problems thousands of feet up without pressure(Hornet I don't know if you've chambered yet but if you have you know what I'm talking about). They are taking the least wanted jobs to try and turn their lives around. THEY ARE DYING IN COMBAT. I'm sorry your son wasn't accepted. If he wants to fight he can enlist. But please don't call anyone who puts on the same uniform as me and fights next to me a loser. Thank you.:thumb:
 
Recruits were allowed to enlist after having been convicted of crimes including assault, burglary, drug possession and making terrorist threats

Let's get this right, they grant waivers for these guys, but if the guy does this during AD they are sent to prison and dishonorably discharged, gee that makes sense!

As a woman and a mom the last person I would want my DS to be roomed with is someone with an assault background. I understand being defensive of the service because they are willing to die for the country, but there is more than that to the situation. Your examples of medical conditions are not valid in this scenario, and even then the waivers are almost non-existent.
When the Navy gives a waiver for colorblindness it is never to the guy who is flying, or at least that is what I have been led to believe (we actually have a friend that joineed AF b/c of colorblindness). The chamber that you are speaking about also is not something that they readily waiver, along with inner ear issues..
 
Poyner, while I know some have done things out of desperation or other circumstances, but there are few I'd be willing to serve with if that's what they resorted to in hard times or were willing to do even when they weren't. Sure they are dying besides others, but I don't want to have to keep checking my wallet if the guy I'm sharing the tent with was a felony burgler....
 
I personally believe in the possiblity of rehablitation and I don't necessarily have a problem with this. Recently I saw a program on the History Channel about gang members in the military and I hope that the Dept. of Defense has enacted measures to keep gang members from joining. I am curious about the percentages of recruits with criminal waivers.
 
This is a move of desperation on the Army's part- no way to see it as anything other trying to make the best of a bad recruiting situation. If you can remember back to the Army of the 70's thru about 1982- you are all too familiar with this story. Under Jimmy Carter's tenure Lieutenants never went into the barracks alone, the duty NCO always carried a club and the MP dogs were running thru the barracks night and day sniffing out narcotics. Lieutenants and Sergeants don't have an easy life when they are enlisting guys into their platoon who- 5 years ago- would have been chaptered out in a heartbeat. All you need is a few barracks thieves or dope pushers to destroy a unit fast. The Army spokesman who is spinning this with "we get kids who go to court who in the past wouldn't have been charged," and makes a justification for overweight waivers is looking at recruiting numbers only. I sure wouldn't want my son to be standing in the turret of a Stryker with the guy underneath waived for assault or burglary. It took a long time to overcome that world- and a warm body isn't always better than none. The Army isn't the place of last resort and if the local bank won't hire a teller because of a felony conviction- I don't see how the Army should be the place that he gains his redemption. There are some things I suppose you can waive- but not many criminal ones without really compromising your force.
 
I personally believe in the possiblity of rehablitation and I don't necessarily have a problem with this. Recently I saw a program on the History Channel about gang members in the military and I hope that the Dept. of Defense has enacted measures to keep gang members from joining. I am curious about the percentages of recruits with criminal waivers.

I am curious about the percentage of recruits with felony waivers who are charged with crimes after they enlist compared with the percentage of non-waived recruits who get into legal trouble.
 
I am curious about the percentage of recruits with felony waivers who are charged with crimes after they enlist compared with the percentage of non-waived recruits who get into legal trouble.

Very true. We're not seeing the whole picture and I'd like to see more statistics like the one you mentioned before I pass true judgment.
 
Poyner, while I know some have done things out of desperation or other circumstances, but there are few I'd be willing to serve with if that's what they resorted to in hard times or were willing to do even when they weren't. Sure they are dying besides others, but I don't want to have to keep checking my wallet if the guy I'm sharing the tent with was a felony burgler....

Neither would I. If it could be avoided, I would say that it isn't a good idea to let those with criminal backrounds sign up. But its not up to me. My problem was with navydad calling anyone on active duty a loser, regardless of their backround.
 
He called the criminals that get waivers losers, not everyone. I have been a military spouse for almost 20 yrs, and soon to be a military mom. I would feel that even an AD member who commits a crime someone who is morally corrupt, thus they are to me losers. You cannot parse words and say well they served the country and thus they deserve respect even though they committed a crime.

Let's be real here, there will be military members that will commit crimes (Camp LeJeune murder comes to mind) Should we give him respect for serving our country while he killed a pregnant soldier that he raped and then burned her to death?

Bullet will tell you that if you ever go FT Leavenworth for PME, they give you a tour of the prison barracks...most of the crimes committed by servicemembers are drug related or sexual related. So if the military gives a waiver to someone who committs assualt or sold a small amount of X, then shouldn't they allow the member a pass, afterall they are giving waivers to the exact same felons
 
It's definitely a sticky situation. While I want to believe the military knows what it's doing, I cannot deny being a bit concerned about this. Even if I had the stats that Commish suggests above, I'm not convinced I'd be fully onboard with this idea...
 
As the mother of a future officer this concerns me also. I know the Army is trying to increase recruiting but is this really the best thing? There has to be other ways to get more people to join without resorting to felons. :thumbdown:
 
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/04/ap_militarywaivers_042908/

Study: Recruits on waivers get promoted faster
By Lolita C. Baldor - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Apr 30, 2008 7:36:51 EDT

WASHINGTON — Soldiers who need special waivers to get into the Army because of bad behavior go AWOL more often and face more courts-martial. But they also get promoted faster and re-enlist at a higher rate, according to an internal military study obtained by The Associated Press.
The Army study late last year concluded that taking a chance on a well-screened applicant with a criminal, bad driving or drug record usually pays off....................................................
The statistics show that recruits with criminal records or other drug and alcohol issues have more discipline problems than those without records. Those recruits also are a bit more likely to drop out of the Army because of alcohol.
On the brighter side, those with waivers earn more medals for valor and tend to stay in the Army longer.
.........................
Gen. William Wallace, commander of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va., dismisses the notion that waivers are creating more disciplinary problems in today’s Army.
Instead, he said, when the Army brings in a young person who made a mistake and got past it, most likely “they will be a better person for having made that mistake and learned from it, than perhaps somebody who didn’t make the mistake and didn’t have the opportunity to learn.”
Wallace speaks from experience.
As a teen he was taken into custody in his hometown of Louisville, Ky., when — as he put it — “I took an expensive baseball and put it in a not-so-expensive baseball box, and tried to check out with it.”
 
Okay my head hurts, they are more likely to go AWOL, and have discplinary problems, but they do their job better than anyone else to get promoted faster?

Please someone explain how that happens? How can someone go AWOL or have disciplinary issues, and yet be promted. As any officer would tell you...go AWOL, don't come back because it is over. Get a LOR in your file and lose your security clearance it is all over
 
Maybe they meant the "bad ones" remain bad; i.e. go AWOL, etc. But those who reallly wanted to change their lives work really hard, make excellent soldiers, and are therefore promoted. Maybe the "good" ex-cons work harder than the average soldier, while the "bad" ex-cons make poorer choices than the average.
 
Pima, my dear - mom3boys is spot on. The statistics are taken from the group as a whole.

Say you have 100 "good" recruits and 100 "bad" recruits. More of the 100 bad recruits will go AWOL and not serve their enlistment - not many more though.

Of those that behave - that group of "bad" recruits will get promoted faster, re-enlist, earn more medals for valor etc.....

This is exactly why the Army will take a risk with a conduct waiver. Those that toe the line perform well. They even outform the "good" conduct recruits. They are kids who aren't afraid to work and have adjusted well to discipline and structure in their lives.
 
Okay lets go with that theory...however, how did they get past the recruiter to be deemed that they were not the "bad" recruit?

I am not saying that people should not have a second chance, I am just asking if they had a strong enough background search. Maybe, for the bad recruits there should be a longer, more in depth background search.

When any service member goes AWOL it can cause issues, including C status, which causes issues for everyone within their command
 
*SIGH*
It's not a theory. They did a statistical study of recruits who entered with conduct waivers and those who entered who were "clean" - i.e. without a conduct waiver.

By "good" recruit - I mean those who entered the Army without a conduct waiver and by "bad" recruit I mean those who entered the Army with a conduct waiver.

From the study it appears that many "bad" recruits do indeed turn into very good soldiers -
The article describes the waiver process - the background search and the many layers of interviews a recruit must undergo to be afforded a conduct waiver.
 
In a comparison of both groups the study found that soldiers who had received waivers for bad behavior:

• Had a higher desertion rate (4.26 percent vs. 3.59 percent).

• Had a higher misconduct rate (5.95 percent vs. 3.55 percent).

• Had a higher rate of appearances before courts-martial (1 percent vs. 0.71 percent).

• Had a higher dropout rate for alcohol rehabilitation failure (0.27 percent vs. 0.12 percent).

But they also:

• Were more likely to re-enlist (28.48 percent vs. 26.76 percent).

• Got promoted faster to sergeant (after 34.7 months vs. 39 months).

• Had a lower rate of dismissal for personality disorders (0.93 percent vs. 1.12 percent).

• Had a lower rate of dismissal for unsatisfactory performance (0.26 percent vs. 0.48 percent).

Those are the stats...in the end we are talking about
In that time, 276,231 recruits enlisted in the Army with no prior military service. Of those 6.5 percent, or nearly 18,000 had waivers.

Instead of giving waivers, maybe DOD should be honest about why they are not meeting their recruitment goal and why they need to give waivers when the AF is meeting theirs. What is the real reason they have a shortage, is it that the pay is too low, is it due to the war, is it due to benefits, or is it societal reasons (people saying they support troops, but ask what are you crazy you're going to get killed)

I am sorry, but the difference of 608 more goodguys out of 276,231 getting dismissed for unsat is not worth having to bring 6,630 more up for court martials. Even if you add in the difference in re-enlistment rate (4751 more reup) you still have 1271 "bad" leaving, just in those 2 cats. Also if you use the number of 18K waivers, more than 1 in 3 are court martialed, which wastes a lot of our tax dollars. I am referring to training them and some court martialed will go onto make big rocks into little rocks, more tax dollars being spent at Leavenworth!

When the General says he stole a baseball, that is a teenage stunt and stupidity, which is totally different from assault.

Sorry, but I do not want my DS in a foxhole with someone that pummeled someone else for whatever reason you can give me, b/c let's be honest being in the foxhole with lack of sleep, using baby wipes to clean yourself is not a happy experience and would cause the sane person to get short with their temper, so lets not add that to someone who has already proven they have a short fuse!
 
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