Crime Stories

Should criminals serving jail be sent to the military to fight in wars?

Also, should criminals who finished their time be allowed to fight in wars? There's a debate in my household that criminals should while I hesitantly say no, not knowing for sure of the overall of such an act. It has its fair of good and bad consequences.

Public Comments

This country have tried that before and it didn't work .What would stop those prisoners from defecting to the other side to fight us .
Can you trust a criminal to follow orders and protect his fellow soldiers? How will volunteer soldiers feel about having a convicted criminal with them in a fox hole? I know quite a few Marines that I served with were given the option of serving or going to jail and they chose to serve. They were all non violent offenders though. Forcing someone to serve probably wouldn't work out to well.
No, they shouldn't. We don't have a draft anymore, so why should someone in jail be forced to fight in a war? If they volunteer, then of course. Because it's has to be their choice. If it's forced, it will back fire.
Having convicted criminals, and I am also assuming you mean violent offenders, serve in our military would be a bad idea. The US military does not operate like armies like in World War II where the Germans and Soviets both made use of units composed of criminals. The political and media sensitivities to the actions of US military personnel abroad alone would make this a non-starter. The Soviet experience in world war two often-involved soldiers classified as convicts because of political unreliability, family connections, etc., and they were incorporated into penal battalions that were used as labor units and cannon fodder on the western front. The front line units were encourage to advanced by placing other better-armed troops to their rear giving them no option that did not involve getting shot at. The German Army used several units composed of convicts, most notably as part of the Afrika Korps (I had read it was the 90th Light Division, but that was from the old Crusader computer game for MAC) and they apparently fought pretty well and honorably.