ABSTRACT
The work of Army psychiatrists in relation to military delinquency, and to disciplinary problems and procedure, was necessarily governed by the practical limitations imposed by the general urgent demands of the national emergency and conditions of war and administrative rigidity, ipse per se, of the military organization. The Memorandum also set out the form of report to be used by psychiatrists, and defined their general function in disciplinary cases. The large majority of chronic delinquents and unstable anti-social psychopaths could be discharged neither on administrative, disciplinary grounds, nor in appropriate cases, on psychiatric grounds. In view of the critical observations which it is presently proposed to make, on such aspects of military disciplinary methods as are the particular concern of the psychiatrists, e.g. selection, morale, and rehabilitation, it is appropriate first to refer to the development of more recent trends towards a reform of the institutional penal system in the Army.
