USING JUDGMENT IN REPORTING VIOLATIONS

2-7 USING JUDGMENT IN REPORTING VIOLATIONS The need for using good judgment is vital in reporting violations. Some violations are minor in nature and some are major. As a petty officer, you need to become familiar with separating the two. Good judgment ability is not an inherited trait. You must develop it over a period of time. You have to develop the ability to decide and to form an opinion objectively when you report violations of the UCMJ. The judgment you use may affect the rest of a person’s naval career. You are going to see violations of the UCMJ every day. Some will be minor and some will be major. If you see a violation, stop for a minute to think before you act. You cannot smile away a violation one day and rebuke it the next. Under these conditions personnel don’t know where they stand. At times you need only offer a word of caution to correct a problem. At other times you may need to take more action. Study your personnel, watch them, learn their language and points of view, work with them, guide them, and counsel them. Then, you can commend the good personnel and, as often as you must, report the bad ones without fear or favor. If you were to report minor violations all the time, you would bog down our justice system; and your effectiveness as a leader would rapidly decline. Remember to stop and think before you act. Use discretion in reporting a violation. Violations That Should Be Reported Remember, a violation is a violation and should not go unanswered. At times your judgment as a petty officer comes into play. You need to take a hard look at the violation and see if it warrants reporting. Some examples of offenses that normally warrant reporting (major violations) are as follows: � Assault of a superior commissioned officer or willful disobedience of a superior commis- sioned officer’s orders � Disrespect towards a superior commissioned officer � Being drunk while on duty � Drunken or reckless driving � Willful destruction of government property Those are only a few of the violations you must report. For a complete picture of the violations you must report, examine the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Doing so will help you recognize offenses which are major violations. Violations That Should Not Be Reported Now that you have read about some of the major violations you should report, consider some minor violations you should not report. These simply involve inadequate behavior that stems from not doing the job or meeting standards. Some examples are as follows: � Being late from time to time for routine muster � Falling down on the job from time to time and also lack of attention to nonvital details � Occasionally not completing work on time This type of behavior usually is not serious enough for placing a person on report. However, it does require some form of action by you, such as counseling, lowering of evaluations, extension of working hours, or withholding of special privileges for a time. Be mindful that this type of behavior is usually minor in nature but also may be the beginning of a behavior pattern leading to something more serious. Reporting minor offenses that are not habitual or extreme burdens the legal system unnecessarily and tells your superiors you are not fulfilling your responsibility as a leader to counsel and discipline your subordinates. That does not mean reporting an offender shows a failure on your part. Just be sure you have done everything in your power to straighten out an offender before placing him or her on report for repeated minor offenses. REVIEW 2 QUESTIONS Q1. Why is it important to inform the chain of command on matters pertaining to good order and discipline?