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[Bauglir]

You're gonna have to add on a lot of training just to overcome the psychological problem of getting the 2 non-penal guys to be willing to shoot somebody who is ostensibly on their side. You need to find a way of getting them to consider the penal soldiers their allies in order to get them to fight effectively, but I'd like to hear a way of doing that that allows them to consider shooting those guys when they start raping random women or shooting bystanders for sport. From the sound of it, it's the kind of guys that'd do that that you're considering for this, yes?

Because those things are a thing that happen without instituting penal legions, and there's a strong incentive in the military to stand by your teammate whatever happens (because that's what you're trained to do, and it's often necessary in a life-or-death situation). Trust me, the vast majority of convicts pressed into this service won't be going after their fellow soldiers (y'know, the guys who are trained in multiple ways of making things dead). That's actually the least of our worries.

Just to approach it from another angle (the other objections are also pretty good ones, honestly).

[Vector]

Or controlled.

Tell me the patent number of your invention and we'll talk.

[mainiac]

Trust me, the vast majority of convicts pressed into this service won't be going after their fellow soldiers (y'know, the guys who are trained in multiple ways of making things dead). That's actually the least of our worries.

I dunno.  I don't think any amount of training can protect you from someone who is:
1) close to you
2) well armed
3) free to pick his time and place

[druid91]

Or controlled.

Tell me the patent number of your invention and we'll talk.

What invention? It's called, do this or we shoot you. Do this long enough and you can retire to a nicer prison than the one you started at. Besides, then you can tell any offspring you might have that your life wasn't a complete waste.

There is no mechanism of controlling dangerous criminals that's effective, humane, and guaranteed enough to justify using it for penal military service.

It's a horrible idea.  At best we would look bad for drugging up/mind-controlling/whatever a bunch of our own citizens and using them as cannon fodder (The real Penal Legion route), and at worst we have a political disaster when a bunch of criminals start doing what criminals do to the unsuspecting populace of the country we're fighting in.

Well there's always the cliche of strapping bombs to them . and we already look bad. Personally I don't see how using prisoners for cannon fodder would make it any worse. heck look at all the support the death penalty has.

As for situation two, the penal commander takes the guys gear away and gives him to the mob that would probably form. That would probably forestall any further incidents.

Trust me, the vast majority of convicts pressed into this service won't be going after their fellow soldiers (y'know, the guys who are trained in multiple ways of making things dead). That's actually the least of our worries.

I dunno.  I don't think any amount of training can protect you from someone who is:
1) close to you
2) well armed
3) free to pick his time and place

Who said they'd be well armed?

[Bauglir]

Trust me, the vast majority of convicts pressed into this service won't be going after their fellow soldiers (y'know, the guys who are trained in multiple ways of making things dead). That's actually the least of our worries.

I dunno.  I don't think any amount of training can protect you from someone who is:
1) close to you
2) well armed
3) free to pick his time and place

Yeah, but to be fair, I don't think most of them are going to have an incentive to kill fellow soldiers. Most of them would be there not because of a compulsion to kill (which would probably end up landing them somewhere else), but because they don't care about killing or find it fun. In that case, I think targets outside the army are going to be more enticing. I'm exaggerating for effect, I suppose, but what I'm expecting is that violent crime problems relating to the military are going to be multiplied by a more or less constant number, and I think that violence directed outside a unit is probably more common than within it. Although one part of this that I didn't address is that rape of female soldiers is likely to increase in the same proportion, for the same reasons, and it probably deserves to be called out as a specific negative consequence. Maybe you segregate units with women and convicts, but then you have huge logistics nightmares that sometimes a tactical situation will prevent you from keeping to, and so on.

Really, there are just too many psychological and practical problems in getting a system like this to work.

[Pnx]

There are already far too many asshats in the military, there's no need to make things worse, and these days throwing more soldiers at the problem generally doesn't help. Also, from what I can gather from talking to a couple of ex-soldiers the US military doesn't want more frontline infantry, they seem to have enough psychopathic killers already, and are more interested in filling support roles. The rampant recruitment seems to be more aimed at increasing the quality rather than the quantity of soldiers. That said...

Actually, for some small-level crimes they do give the option to join the military. -snip-

There's this, military training and service has shown to be a pretty good method of rehabilitation. So put prisoners in military service could be pretty good for them, and it's not like they have to be in an important roll.

[Megaman]

Forget killing and rape, what about stealing supplies?

[Vector]

What invention? It's called, do this or we shoot you. Do this long enough and you can retire to a nicer prison than the one you started at. Besides, then you can tell any offspring you might have that your life wasn't a complete waste.

Your critical assumption here is that the insane act rationally.

I believe this is somewhat problematic.

[druid91]

Forget killing and rape, what about stealing supplies?

where are they going to hide them?

[Gorjo MacGrymm]

Reason not to use penal legions?  Proven to be unreliable, unless you plan on sending them far away, on their own, to somewhere you dont really care about and whatever they screw up/whomever the kill is purely bonus points.  At least, this is how I view the French Foriegn Legion, but admittedly, my view isnt very well educated on them.  But from general historical use, penal soldiers are less effective in acheiving and maintaining military readiness.

[Megaman]

Forget killing and rape, what about stealing supplies?

where are they going to hide them?

Lost them somewhere around a market.

[Vector]

where are they going to hide them?

I'm sorry, but have you never thought "I'll just drive off this here supply truck and hock off the stuff on the black market?"

[mainiac]

Who said they'd be well armed?

Ah, soldiers without guns.  Now that's an effective fighting force!

Reason not to use penal legions?  Proven to be unreliable, unless you plan on sending them far away, on their own, to somewhere you dont really care about and whatever they screw up/whomever the kill is purely bonus points.  At least, this is how I view the French Foriegn Legion, but admittedly, my view isnt very well educated on them.  But from general historical use, penal soldiers are less effective in acheiving and maintaining military readiness.

The French Foreign Legion is only about 20% foreign at this point IIRC.

[Acanthus117]

Penal legions are inefficient, they make you unpopular and they're wasteful overall, not to mention a menace to the soldiers who are... you know, actual soldiers?

Not to mention how it'll affect the actual military.

[Bauglir]

Or controlled.

Tell me the patent number of your invention and we'll talk.

What invention? It's called, do this or we shoot you. Do this long enough and you can retire to a nicer prison than the one you started at. Besides, then you can tell any offspring you might have that your life wasn't a complete waste.

There is no mechanism of controlling dangerous criminals that's effective, humane, and guaranteed enough to justify using it for penal military service.

It's a horrible idea.  At best we would look bad for drugging up/mind-controlling/whatever a bunch of our own citizens and using them as cannon fodder (The real Penal Legion route), and at worst we have a political disaster when a bunch of criminals start doing what criminals do to the unsuspecting populace of the country we're fighting in.

Well there's always the cliche of strapping bombs to them . and we already look bad. Personally I don't see how using prisoners for cannon fodder would make it any worse. heck look at all the support the death penalty has.

As for situation two, the penal commander takes the guys gear away and gives him to the mob that would probably form. That would probably forestall any further incidents.

Trust me, the vast majority of convicts pressed into this service won't be going after their fellow soldiers (y'know, the guys who are trained in multiple ways of making things dead). That's actually the least of our worries.

I dunno.  I don't think any amount of training can protect you from someone who is:
1) close to you
2) well armed
3) free to pick his time and place

Who said they'd be well armed?

So basically, your plan is to give the military all the problems of a maximum security prison, plus the problem of finding a way to apply all that security in a force that by definition has to be mobile, along with a large amount of dead weight in combat situations? Bear in mind, these are just practical problems. Ethical, public relations, and psychology issues aren't even a part of this particular question. I don't mean to be insulting, but I really don't believe this is practical. Much less the right thing to do.

EDIT: Wait, we're talking about the criminally insane? Not just criminals? That... that makes it even worse, because yeah. Now you have people who might not be in the position of being able to think that killing the guy sleeping next to them is a bad idea, or able to stop themselves from doing it even if they do think it's a bad idea.