This is a true IMHO.
What, effectively is it? I know the definition, but it seems that I hear of a lot of military wrong doers, especially officers, charged with it along with other any charges.
Does breaking pretty much any military rule, in itself, make one derelictect in one’s duty?
Peace,
mangeorge
Yes. It is the duty of each soldier to perform certain duties. Failure to perform any of them is dereliction of duty. As rank goes up, the range of possible offenses increases. For example, I was a squad sgt in the infantry ( Army reserves, peacetime, I make no claim to being a honored vet). If I ordered a private to set up a listening post to detect intruders, and he did not, he could be charged with failing to obey a lawful order. If it was discovered by my platoon sgt that it was not done, I could be charged with dereliction because as sgt it was my duty to adequately supervise that private and insure the order was followed. Dereliction is often the charge when nothing more concrete can be charged.
The civilian equivilant would be nonfeasance. Nonfeasance is failure to act in a matter proscribed by law. An example is if I were a police officer and saw two men beating the stuffings out of someone, but because the victim was of a race or ethnic group, or economic status I did not like, or even because I am lazy or on the way to the coffee shop, drive on by and refuse to act. The law says I must act, failure to do so is nonfeasance (A felony in my state). The closly related term is malfeasance, which is using a position of authority to do wrong, for example redirecting officers coming to the aid of the victim to a false location.
The main difference between nonfeasance and deleliction is that in nonfeasance it must be proved you knew of the situation and chose not to act. In dereliction it is assumed it was your job to know and you have to prove there were factors that kept you from knowing.
Just my understanding of it all, I could be wrong on some details, but that should give you the flavor of it.
Thanks for the explanation, seenidog. That’s pretty much as I thought, and it fits.
mangeorge