Law Enforcement on Ship

Another necessity on ship that doesn’t really fit in any department are the MAs, or Master-at-Arms. The MAs are the cops on ship and they take care of enforcing the restricted personnel schedules, observing the daily urinalysis requirements, and investigating accusations made on ship for things like stealing, unexplained absences, and alcoholic incidences. Restricted personnel are people who have gone through the ship’s judicial system and the commanding officer sentenced them for restriction. The worst sentence for restriction is 45/45 which means forty-five days of extra duty and forty-five days of only getting half of the usual paycheck. Once sentenced they are unable to leave the ship without supervision and paperwork for the assigned amount of time. They also have to be at a specified location, usually near the MA Shack, or office, at about 6:30 each morning, 12:30 each afternoon, and 6:00 each night. At the 6:00 meeting each night, except Sunday, the personnel are “checked-out” and assigned to someone on ship who requested their help for the night. Two hours each night they are assigned extra duty, usually cleaning the division didn’t want to do during the day or other manual work the division didn’t have time to do during the workday. At 8:00 the restricted personnel meet at the designated location to end their night and they have to be in their berthing from 10 pm to 5am or their chief needs to say why they were elsewhere since work is the only accepted explanation. Each Sunday the restricted personnel are allowed two hours on the mess deck with guests, usually children or just spouse or girlfriend/boyfriend, before going back to the usual routine.
Another part of the ship’s law enforcement is shore patrol. This is a group of people from the ship who are sent out to busy areas of the port to watch for trouble brewing, such as crew members that are more than tipsy and need help getting back to ship, injured personnel that need help getting back to ship, and anything else that may come up. Although they have no more authority than any other civilian they are connected to the ship so they can get the duty van to the location fast and they are often witnesses if things go too far.