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Military Service and Criminality

1952; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Volume: 42; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1139680

2160-0333

Walter A. Lunden,

Defense, Military, and Policy Studies

In the aftermath of every major war certain people and some organizations give considerable credence to the idea that military service tends to create criminality in the men who have served in the armed forces of the nation after they return to civilian life. In some instances novels and movies popularize the notion that military duty fosters crime and disorder among men in arms after a war. After World War I such novels and plays as What Price Glory?, They Put a Gun in My Hand, All Quiet on the Western Front and The Road Back more than suggested that soldiering resulted in crime. Since World War II there has been less evidence of this idea, but when newspapers report a crime commited by some ex-G.I. his war record often appears in the account in such a manner as to intimate that military duty had something to do with the violation.