Posted on Feb 18, 2014
Should the Army reinstate the use of Correctional Confinement Facilities?
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If you were to get a Company Grade Article 15 for some minor offense, one of the punishment options is a week's confinement. Move up to a Field Grade ART 15 and you can get a month.<br><br>This USED to be served at the post CCF, or Correctional Confinement Facility, popularly called the Gulag. It wasn't jail, but it wasn't a nice place, either. Hard-ass NCOs would supervise work details, where an errant young trooper would serve his confinement by filling sandbags, or cutting firewood for the Sr. NCO's and Officer's quarters. The soldiers lived in WWII barracks which were surrounded by a fence but no guard. There was a CQ on duty to make sure nobody ran off, however.<br><br>The objective was to make the wrong-doer sweat a bit for their crimes. This did one of two things: the soldier who punched an NCO and got an ART-15 would either become reformed, or would become incorrigible and would generally wind up being Chaptered out of the service. More often than not, the soldiers who went to CCF would be reformed.<br><br>I started this thread as a companion to the School of the Soldier thread... by getting back to the basics, even with a purely volunteer Service, I feel the needs of the NCOs are best being met. <br><br>What do you think? Have you had any experience with the CCF? (I once took a truckload of empty sandbags to the CCF to have them filled... I was tapped to support the construction of ROTC summer camp fighting positions at Ft. Lewis. The NCOIC at the CCF pointed to a shade tree and told the three of us to relax in the lounge chairs under it. A few hours later our truck was neatly loaded with a thousand or so filled sandbags. Nice.)<br>
Punishment
UCMJ
Discipline
Posted 12 y ago
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"Back in the day," CDRs had the ability to send Basic Training Soldiers, OSUT Soldiers, and others who needed a dose of reality, to Scared Straight. Scared Straight was conducted at the Regional Correctional Facility at Fort Knox. 48-96 hours was usually more enough to "scare a Soldier straight," get their head out ass, and find the proper motivation to train. The success rate was very high.
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CPT Jacob Swartout
1SG Steven Stankovich I need a RCF started here with the amount of new IET Soldiers that quit training for a plethora of reasons other than they are physically hurt or didn't pass a graduation requirement. Not all will graduate and not all should be in the Army however, a vast majority just quit because that option of violating ART 92 hold no weight to them other than more time in BCT/OSUT and it doesn't give them any RCF time. If we had one, I would send them to it. These non-trainers will take a FG ART 15 along with the consequences and know that eventually they will be home. To them it's worth it despite what kind of chapter they receive.
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1SG Steven Stankovich
I concur with you there CPT Jacob Swartout. And I know about a dozen AIT PSGs that would also welcome the rehabilitation option.
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CPL Raymond Weaver
Do you think the quality of soldier would improve substantially if we had the draft ?
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1SG Steven Stankovich
CPL Raymond Weaver, no I do not. We have high quality Soldiers now and that is due in large part be cause they want to be Soldiers. We have an all volunteer force. If service becomes mandatory due to a draft, I believe there would’ve a substantial drop in not only new recruits, but in our overall force.
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While sitting in those worthless SHARP classes today instead of doing my job I was thinking about Charlie's Chicken Farm and how we didn't have the discipline problems then that we have now. There is something to be said for some direct intervention and I think we saw that in the "good old days".
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Absolutely! I wish we had that option in BCT-land. Believe me,I'd recommend it every time the chance came along (within reason).
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SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL
I believe it should come back, I remember it was 30 days they called it the "School of Soldiers". You were a better trained, mentally and physcially Soldier.
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1SG Michael Blount
@SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL - I will never forget the first time I ran into people from Charlie's Chicken Farm. I was a DSC at Ft Knox and wondered who were those people wearing raggedy uniforms doing yard work. I remember wondering if CCF was Army-wide or post-specific. I now think it should be Army-wide and post-prominent. People have GOT to understand that the days of just showing up for a job are over. I don't know what else or how better to get that idea across than displaying what happens to offenders. USMC has something similar and we all know they don't have nearly the discipline problems the Army does. Is there a connection? I think so.
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This is an interesting suggestion, Sir. Admittedly, most of my career has been Reserve-side, so the CCF is a foreign concept I have only heard/read about in passing. Allow me to bounce my thoughts off the community:
I support an idea such as what you have described. Taking away some of the comforts of daily life and adding in some hard work under the supervision of some strict NCOs trained in guiding Soldiers back onto the right path will give errant Soldiers some time to reflect on what they did wrong. It would make sense that a CCF (or something similar) would be a place where a Soldier would either straighten up or wash out.
I think an important thing is making sure that it's not just a work detail. As I suggested, I would hope the NCOs supervising the CCF would be trained to not just be a "hard-ass" (though that is certainly a key trait, I would think) but also to provide corrective guidance and support. Perhaps this could be done by completing some sort of counseling session when the Soldier processes in and out of the CCF or other similar program.
I support an idea such as what you have described. Taking away some of the comforts of daily life and adding in some hard work under the supervision of some strict NCOs trained in guiding Soldiers back onto the right path will give errant Soldiers some time to reflect on what they did wrong. It would make sense that a CCF (or something similar) would be a place where a Soldier would either straighten up or wash out.
I think an important thing is making sure that it's not just a work detail. As I suggested, I would hope the NCOs supervising the CCF would be trained to not just be a "hard-ass" (though that is certainly a key trait, I would think) but also to provide corrective guidance and support. Perhaps this could be done by completing some sort of counseling session when the Soldier processes in and out of the CCF or other similar program.
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We used the local CCU at lot at Pendleton. You're right, it was a great alternative to just arbitrarily burning someone...
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We had this in the Corps when I came in in the mid 90s. I knoew a few guys that got sent over there and for the most part it straightened them out. Sometimes being sent away for 15-30 days and making big rocks out of small rocks is all it takes to get a Marine back on the straight and narrow. Our program continued until the early 2000s but was suspended due to lack of personnel to run it since the wars started. I think CCU needs to come back as it can straighten out those that might need some "guidance".
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<p>Sir,</p><p><br></p><p>It will never happen because of the PC wuss's and the left-wing whiners who will claim it is cruel and unusual, although the military survived with it for many, many years. I worked at one for awhile back in the 90s at Ft. Hood, but they took it away about late '95 because of the PC changes taking place during the Clinton Admin during the last RIF we suffered through. It was a great tool for helping to reform and guide troubled Soldiers in the right direction, but because of politicians that have no business sticking their noses into the rules and regulations of the military we have lost so many things that were functional and favorable to all SMs, old and new alike.</p><p><br></p><p>Great thought and post though.</p>
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LTC John Czarnecki
ABSOLUTELY!!! It would be great if the commander had the ability to fully exercise his/her full NJP power.
Unfortunately that would fall on the units as another red cycle tasking for NCOs to be supervisors. We have too many gates to guard so, "ain't nobody got time for that".
ABSOLUTELY!!! It would be great if the commander had the ability to fully exercise his/her full NJP power.
Unfortunately that would fall on the units as another red cycle tasking for NCOs to be supervisors. We have too many gates to guard so, "ain't nobody got time for that".
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LTC John Czarnecki
Absolutely... The old CCF system worked and should be reinstated. It gave little more teeth to punishment short of a court-martial.
The Army had a whole system of CCFs, from individual installation CCFs to the FT Riley Correctional Activity (later renamed Retraining Brigade), where some soldiers were sentenced to in lieu of going to the Disciplinary Barracks at Ft Leavenworth, with a chance to return to active duty as productive soldiers. Of course, in today's zero-defect mentality, any such return would be very short-lived as they would never survive the next promotion, review board, etc.
Absolutely... The old CCF system worked and should be reinstated. It gave little more teeth to punishment short of a court-martial.
The Army had a whole system of CCFs, from individual installation CCFs to the FT Riley Correctional Activity (later renamed Retraining Brigade), where some soldiers were sentenced to in lieu of going to the Disciplinary Barracks at Ft Leavenworth, with a chance to return to active duty as productive soldiers. Of course, in today's zero-defect mentality, any such return would be very short-lived as they would never survive the next promotion, review board, etc.
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I think that it should. I remember programs like "School of the Soldier" and CCF and I thought that it was something good. It reinforced the fact that there were consequences for your actions and it gave you the opportunity to see that you could have received somethjng worse (money lost, reduced in rank, etc.). The issue is that you have to figure out how to bring the program beck at all levels, from IET to permanent party. I think that if that can be figured out, then you have brought back an excellent tool for reinforcing discipline and standards.
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