Retraining Naval Offenders

Abstract

One of the problems of the civilian world is that of dealing with those socially maladjusted individuals who are called delinquents. It is to be expected, therefore, that a similar problem should exist in an organiza tion as large as the wartime naval establishment. Naval delinquency, while in many ways comparable to that existing in civil life, has many facets which are peculiar to a military organization. A man under military discipline is restricted as to individual freedom. Many of the things he had been able to do as a civilian are prohibited. There, if he came late to work or talked back to his boss he might have been discharged but he was perfectly free to look for another job. In the Navy he found that such acts often resulted in a court-martial. In other ways the civilian sailor found his movements re stricted. He had to get permission to go beyond the limits of the port; he had to be back aboard ship or on the station at a certain time; and if some one became ill in his family, military necessity often prevented him from going home.