Not so fast; federal law prohibits the enlistment of youth in trouble.... A local judge cannot direct a kid to join the Army or go to jail....
Every applicant has local and federal background checks run before entry in the delayed enlistment program (DP). No one joins today and ships tomorrow. Has not been so for more than a while- at least since the early 90s when I did a tour on recruiting duty, and even so when I enlisted in ‘83.
The quality of todays and the last few decades of servicemen has been very high, morally, legally educationally and physically.
Oh, yeah. The days of "Two in the slam, or four in the Corps" are long since over.
I was thinking along the lines of kids using the military to get out of a rough neighborhood, bad family situation, etc etc etc *before* they get into trouble. I knew a couple of kids in HS who did that - came from abusive families and used the military as a way out. At least one did pretty well for himself, I ran into him 10 years later and he had his Ranger tabs.