Crime and Justice Atlas

How Justice Is Served
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Group

Military Discipline Offenses

Offenses defined specifically by military law and applicable only to a person subject to that law, covering conduct that threatens a military unit's own discipline, readiness or chain of command rather than harming a civilian victim or the broader public. This group gathers desertion, absence without leave, missing a scheduled movement, draft evasion, and malingering or feigning illness to avoid duty, together with the numbered Uniform Code of Military Justice offenses of breaching a medical quarantine, disrespecting or disobeying a superior officer, insubordinate conduct toward a warrant or noncommissioned officer, dereliction of duty, misconduct as a prisoner of war, misbehavior before the enemy, compelling a subordinate's surrender, improper use of a countersign, and improperly hazarding a vessel or aircraft, alongside mutiny, an organized collective refusal to obey lawful orders, and cowardice in the face of the enemy as historically punished across multiple national military codes. It excludes an ordinary civilian offense against state security such as treason or sedition, which belongs under Treason, Sedition and Offenses Against the State, even where a service member's own conduct could theoretically support both kinds of charge.

Browse By
Military Discipline Offenses
Filter Results17 entries
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.