[Old Teufel Hunden]

"Criminal waivers soared under George W. Bush, but plunged again after Barack Obama took office."

This is not a new phenomenon. When I served, I knew a number of guys who had went before a judge and were given a choice of doing jail time or going into the Corps. Now, it was usually misdemeanor stuff and minimal time in jail like perhaps 30 days, but still it was jail. Some kid caught doing auto thefts would have had no problems getting in during the 70's and 80's. Now days they have tightened things up considerably because (thank goodness) there are so many more citizens signing up for the services. Heck, even the Marine Corps has waiting lists to get to boot camp of months. It used to be you could sign up one day, take the physical and go to boot camp the next. Not anymore.

[Gondring]

The problem has been known and studied for a while, and continues to be studied. For example, 15 years ago, they found that nearly half of Navy recruits had a criminal record, and those with criminal records had much higher rates of attrition.

During the Iraq War, though, they soared--including felons. From 2006 to 2007, the number of active-duty felony recruits more than doubled for the Army, and nearly doubled for the Marines. And the 2006 rates were more than double the rates early in the Iraq War.

It's largely a function of the economy, but it's more than that.