Make convicted gang members serve time in the military.

[Wilber]

For those outraged at the thought of criminals in the military - relax. Many times in many nations with rather capable and pride-filled military organizations have found the offer of jail or the military to be of value in the past. That includes the United States Marine Corps - which used to be a favorite referal point for judges with "juvenile delinquents" and the French Foreign Legion.

The US military is huge and judges must give offenders a choice, they cannot arbitrarily put someone into the military. The Canadian military is small. It has been reduced to a point where if you took every soldier, sailor and airman we have, you would have a tough time filling Skydome or BC Place. The number of felons you could put in our military would be very small before it would effect those who volunteered.

The Foreign Legion is a separate unit within the French Army that accepts mercenaries

Qualifications for joining the French Foreign Legion in this era according to one who did.

Recommended minimum physical prerequisites are:

- 30 pushups.

- 50 situps.

- Climb a 20 foot rope without using your feet.

- Run 8 kilometres with a 12 kilogram rucksack in less than one hour.

- 8 chinups with your palms away from you as you grip the bar.

The age range for joining is 18 to 40.

You can't join if you're married.

Women aren't allowed to join.

You don't need to be able to speak French when you enlist but it is a good idea to learn as much as you can beforehand. It will be necessary to speak it in order to do your job.

You will need a valid passport and possibly a visa to enter France. You must enter France at your own expense. You are not reimbursed if they don't accept you.

Think about preparing a last will and testament.

You can't have a bank account in France. The Legion maintains an account for you and you can arrange to transfer money anywhere in the world.

A criminal history may be overlooked if the offenses are minor but there are no guarantees.

[Wilber]

No offense to the CAF! (unintentional if it sounded that way)

It was just the statement that I keep hearing that society this, and society that when it comes to youth crime. There was a time (my time) when I was held accountable for MY OWN ACTIONS. But this doesn't happen anymore. Shoot someone...must have had a poor childhood. Rob someone...must have had a mean dad. Knife someone...why won't anyone reach out to this poor, underprivelaged kid.

You have never heard that statement or anything like it from me.

On the other hand, if the military had the right to refuse any of these people with absolutely no political interference, I wouldn't have a big problem with it.

[Harare]

Wilber, I certainly wasn't suggesting sending 10,000 young thugs to our military but it would be a start and even if only a thousand went thru boot camp every three months it would still be better than the current set up.

Mar, my intention was to promote some discussion and Debate if you have aproblem with that you must be a closed minded Liberal who is 'entitled' to tell all of us yobs how to think.

I don't think so.

[Hollus]

After some more thought on the subject I have to reconsider.

Im sure forced military service violates some rights.

All Im saying is that our justice system needs to provide some sort of positive envirounment so that the underprivilaged kid-with a poor childhood and a mean dad, and no nice mommy to take care of him like HYDRABOSS had- So the kid can make the changes he needs to make.

"Product of themselves"

Really? Do you think these are self made monsters? Nah, I think growing up in ghetto like conditions might have a little somthing to do with it.

Poverty, social services, justice system is managed by government hence the term society.

Your unsubsidized shoe's are such because they were made by a fourteen yearold girl in Guatemala. And thats an entirly different issue society needs to face.

H

[BubberMiley]

Sure, they should be responsible for their actions and they should be punished soundly when they do wrong. But when a 12-year-old kid who was raised in sh*t with a crackho for a mum and no dad joins a gang, it's pretty easy to sit on your middle class high horse and preach personal responsibility. If you had any compassion (and if you were serious about tackling the problem) you would realize, gee, maybe it's cheaper for us (society) in the long run to give this kid a break now, show that we have an interest in him not becoming a gangster, and try and help him on the right path, rather than spending millions supporting him in jail and facilitating his criminality for the rest of his life. If all you can think of is your own money, then think of it as pay a little now or a lot later.

[Army Guy]

There seems to be a few misconceptions about our Military out there. There are a few rules to becoming a member

1. you must be a Canadian citizen,

2. must be of the ages of 17 -50.

3. you can not have a crimanal record.( If you do you'll be asked to apply for and be granted a pardon before you apply.)

4. you must be able to pass a physical.

5. you must pass a written,and oral exam.

Thats it, Thats all. There are no exceptions at all.

The military stop accepting youths ref by the courts some 20-15 years ago because of human rights issues and the whole program really never produced results.

Recruit training is designed to weed out those kids with major attitude or social problems in the early stages of training. Human rights and other so called groups have already diluted the training, by reducing standards to fit women, and other ethinic groups to ensure DND remains within our goverments diveristy standards, IE so many women, so many of each ethinic back ground adding kids with thier own problems will only degrade this problem even farther.

My piont is that these kids require alot of one on one training, and in a dept such as DND there are no individuals. very little time is spent on training Indiv's and the majority of time is spent on training a team. Those that can not grab the team concept quickly are normally weeded out.

Another piont i'd like to piont out , that yes DND is very undermanned but getting recruits is not the issue there are thousands that want to join and serve thier country. The problem is training them and housing them once they are in. There is just no infra struture available to train them as fast as we need them. This problem is not going away anytime soon unless the Government throws money at it.

Finally one question you have to ask yourself as a tax payer is do you want some one operating multi million or billion dollar equipment designed for war, that has a major social or attitude problem.

[scribblet]

[quote

That idea is a disgrace to our military. Your saying that are military should basicly be a place for punishment. Are military deserves much better than these scum joining their ranks.

Agreed, why would we want criminals in our forces? Boot camp of some kind, and whats wrong with a type of 'chain gang' picking up garbage etc.

As for society being at fault somehow for these immoral criminals, I don't buy into that, its not my fault, its the fault of their lack of values, criminal mindset, and likely poor upbringing. Where are the parents while this is going on?

[Hollus]

Yes, where are the parents?

Unfortunately all you need to concept a child is a set of overeis and testicles.

So unless your proposing some sort of state run population control-where you have to obtain a birth licsencse for children-than you and I are going to continue seeing uneducated low income people shitting out babbies that dont have a whole lot of positive influence to draw from.

Society is not you or I alone, it is what amounts from the comunication and interaction of us all.

"Children are a perpetual, sel-renewing underclass, helpless to escape from the decisions of adults untill they become adults themselves" -Orson Scott Card, Enders Game

These kids are societies responsibility and if we want them to stop growing into monsters we better take notice!

[Bill 101?]

"Excellent idea.

I think the military would offer these people a far better chance at becoming responsible citizens than our current jail system.

Would you join the military if you knew that one day you would have to depend on one of these people to keep you alive?

Yes I would.

Are you currently serving in the Military?, if not, put your money where your mouth is and join up before you start with these half cocked ideas. As a matter of fact is ANYONE in here a member of the military past or present?

[Army Guy]

Yes, i am currently serving in CFB (sunny) Petawawa Ont.

[Bill 101?]

I'm speaking to all those people making comparisons and that think they "Know" how the military is, without having served a day in there lives....and NO....just because you've talked to someone in the military, that doesn't make you a Subject Matter Expert.

[politika]

I'm speaking to all those people making comparisons and that think they "Know" how the military is, without having served a day in there lives....and NO....just because you've talked to someone in the military, that doesn't make you a Subject Matter Expert.

Agreed

[Hicksey]

VERY BAD IDEA.

All we'll end up with is thugs better trained to terrorize us, and all the more angry at us to boot.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Army Guy,

My piont is that these kids require alot of one on one training, and in a dept such as DND there are no individuals. very little time is spent on training Indiv's and the majority of time is spent on training a team. Those that can not grab the team concept quickly are normally weeded out.

Another piont i'd like to piont out , that yes DND is very undermanned but getting recruits is not the issue there are thousands that want to join and serve thier country. The problem is training them and housing them once they are in. There is just no infra struture available to train them as fast as we need them. This problem is not going away anytime soon unless the Government throws money at it.

Finally one question you have to ask yourself as a tax payer is do you want some one operating multi million or billion dollar equipment designed for war, that has a major social or attitude problem.

You raise some excellent points. My advocacy lies with handing our prison system to the military, alongside the commensurate funding. Make prisons a place people don't want to go back to.

[Hollus]

"Excellent idea.

I think the military would offer these people a far better chance at becoming responsible citizens than our current jail system.

Would you join the military if you knew that one day you would have to depend on one of these people to keep you alive?

Yes I would.

Are you currently serving in the Military?, if not, put your money where your mouth is and join up before you start with these half cocked ideas. As a matter of fact is ANYONE in here a member of the military past or present?

Yayer right buddy, Im not in military and I didnt mean to trivialize the commitment our troops have made to our Country. Was just trying to counter the statment that anyone passing through our justice system is not fit for duty. If you've followed the thread Ive since pulled a 'Martin' and flipflopped on the idea.

Bottomline is we need a better place to put troublemakers or they come out as hellmakers.

[Army Guy]

Fleabag.

You raise some excellent points. My advocacy lies with handing our prison system to the military, alongside the commensurate funding. Make prisons a place people don't want to go back to.

I tend to disagree, the last thing DND needs is another Non military dept to operate, we already have far to many taskings such as Search and Rescue, emergency prepardness(both provincial and national levels), Dart, to name a few all suck funds out of an already cash strapped dept.

DND has spent alot of time and money rebuilding the depts image. The last thing we need is some bad press over taking corrections canada jobs, or killing an convict over something stupid. The military does not have the training to Handle civilian prisoners who are extremely spoiled with our tax dollars. Nor does it have the man power. I may be wrong but i believe thier are more correction officers than actual military members in all 3 elements.

Yes the Military does have it's own prison for personal charged with non federal crimes only. and trust me there is no comparison to any of our civilian prisons and i'm talking about our maxium security facilities. And thats after human rights toned it down.

I think the only measure is to give the Corrections dept the mandate they need to solve thier own problem. getting the Government to pass new tougher legislature taking away more of thier rights once convicted and sentenced. That combined with tougher sentencing and actually doing the time they were sentenced for. Getting time off for good behavior is stupid, want to be a badass then add more time on to his sentence. Be a good boy and get out when your time is up.

Military prisoners have to earn pionts each day, not enough pionts then that day does not count again'st your sentence. No judge no jury you do another day end of story.

As for our youth and thier problems they to need thier own program perhaps even thier own dept. There has been dozens of private ventures that resembles a military boot camp, some have shown good results and i think if we mixed in other specialties like professional therapy, some tough love, etc they may get a program that produces results.