The Ship Model Forum

Navy to Scrap Bread-and-Water Confinement
27 Dec 2018
Stars and Stripes | By Scott Wyland

The age-old naval punishment of jailing junior sailors for three days with just bread and water soon will go the way of flogging and keelhauling.

The ban on bread-and-water confinement will go into effect Tuesday as part of an extensive change to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which President Barack Obama signed into law in late 2016 and President Donald Trump amended earlier this year.

Bread-and-water confinement is a nonjudicial penalty that ship commanders can mete out to misbehaving sailors in the lowest three pay grades. It dates back to when warships had wooden hulls and sails.

Offenses that might earn sailors a bready diet in the brig are unauthorized absences, insubordination and lewd behavior.

When asked, sailors and former sailors were mostly in favor of the practice being scrapped.
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