Can you become a cop if dishonorably disharged from military
Executive summary
A dishonorable discharge is, in practice, a near‑automatic bar to most sworn policing jobs: federal and many state and municipal law enforcement hiring rules explicitly require an honorable or under‑honorable‑conditions separation from the armed forces [1] [2] [3], and legal and reference sources describe a dishonorable discharge as carrying civil consequences that routinely preclude government employment and the ability to possess firearms—both fundamental to police work [4].
1. How agencies frame “veteran” hiring and the honorability requirement
Federal and municipal veteran‑recruitment programs and individual police departments examine a DD‑214 to verify veteran status and explicitly define eligible veterans as those discharged under honorable or comparable conditions, making honorable separation a documented eligibility threshold for veteran preference and hiring consideration in many jurisdictions [1] [3] [2].
2. Legal and civil consequences that intersect with police qualifications
Authoritative summaries describe a dishonorable discharge as the most severe separation that often equates—under state laws and common administrative practice—to a felony‑level status with attendant loss of civil rights and government benefits; that legal character of the discharge therefore commonly removes the basic legal prerequisites for police employment, including firearms access and holding public office [4].
3. State‑level and agency discretion: some nuance, but limited
While the baseline is exclusionary, the landscape is not totally uniform: a small number of agencies and jurisdictions have mechanisms that review less‑than‑honorable separations case‑by‑case, and some categories below “honorable,” such as other‑than‑honorable (OTH), are treated more variably—departments may weigh the underlying facts, work history, and references [5]. However, major hiring programs and state police application pages still stipulate that veterans must have or expect an honorable discharge to qualify for the standard veterans’ credits and benefits [2].
4. Historical and practical realities recruiters cite
Recruiters, veteran hiring toolkits, and online forum discussions consistently reinforce that hiring screens include military separation status as a major disqualifier; practical hiring notices and job postings for public sector roles explicitly state the discharge must not be dishonorable in order to be considered for police or related civil‑service positions [6] [7].
5. Paths that might change the outcome—discharge upgrades and appeals
A candid factual appraisal must acknowledge a real alternative: the military has administrative and legal processes to seek an upgrade or change in the character of discharge, and many veterans’ advocacy resources encourage pursuing those remedies when a discharge is the barrier to employment (this point is described in job‑assistance and advocacy resources though a specific upgrade procedure citation is not in the provided sources). If an upgrade is granted, the applicant’s eligibility for policing jobs and veterans’ preference would generally be restored to align with the same DD‑214‑based checks noted by departments [3] [1].
6. Bottom line: the rule, its exceptions, and what that means for applicants
The prevailing rule across federal, state, and municipal hiring and legal commentary is straightforward: a dishonorable discharge will disqualify a candidate from most police jobs because it removes the legal foundation (veteran status, firearm rights, government‑job eligibility) recruiters and statutes rely on [4] [1]. Exceptions are rare, fact‑specific, or depend on successful administrative relief such as a discharge upgrade; some agencies may consider non‑dishonorable but less‑than‑honorable separations on a case‑by‑case basis, but that flexibility does not extend to clear dishonorable discharges as described in job postings and legal summaries [5] [6].