Starfleet or jail

[The Wormhole]

But Tom Paris wasn't just any offender. He was a Starfleet graduate and he was convicted for a crime he committed while he was in Starfleet Service.

No. He was already discharged from Starfleet when he joined the Maquis. Therefore his crime wasn't committed while he was in Starfleet service.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

True, but at least he has a history with them - he's not just some guy who's been, I don't know, an Earthbound organic tech-free cabbage farmer all his life, and surprise! You're a starship officer now! (or for that matter, given the choice between hard labour or Starfleet, no going home to the family farm allowed)

 

[Oddish]

In the Royal Navy (the ancestor of the USN which is the ancestor of Starfleet), involuntary impressment was a regular thing. However, random citizens were rarely targeted, simply because their skillset was too limited. The RN liked to grab trained seamen (adult ones anyway) from civilian ships, and occasionally ships from other navies.

 

[Timofnine]

There's the example of Voyager, where Janeway incorporated people the Federation likely saw as criminals into her crew because there was a pressing need. If there was a need for more people, or a criminal had a desired ability, yes Starfleet would take them.

There's also the consideration of what crime was broken, if the crime was a jailable misdemeanor.

Janeway had little choice really, either take the Maquis in as a part of her crew, or suffer a power struggle resulting in a possible mutiny/hostile takeover of Voyager. The technicalities were never explained on screen though I wish that they had have been as it would have made the show more gritty and dramatic. I had assumed whilst originally watching Caretaker that there were only about 7-10 Maquis, we had seen this shuttle craft like Peregrine fighter ship before in Preemptive Strike and also in the the DS9 two parter Maquis 1 and 2.

 

[at Quark's]

No. He was already discharged from Starfleet when he joined the Maquis. Therefore his crime wasn't committed while he was in Starfleet service.

Seems I misremembered. Thought he was in jail for falsifying reports and lying and such, but that 'only' got him booted from Starfleet.

On a personal level, I might consider his first transgression (the lying and falsification) as worse than his second (joining the Maquis supposedly without having committed other consecutive crimes as a punishable act in itself), though. Even though I understand the Federation would judge that differently.

 

[Deks]

Janeway had little choice really, either take the Maquis in as a part of her crew, or suffer a power struggle resulting in a possible mutiny/hostile takeover of Voyager. The technicalities were never explained on screen though I wish that they had have been as it would have made the show more gritty and dramatic. I had assumed whilst originally watching Caretaker that there were only about 7-10 Maquis, we had seen this shuttle craft like Peregrine fighter ship before in Preemptive Strike and also in the the DS9 two parter Maquis 1 and 2.

The Maqui crew seems to have numbered in greater amount than just 7-10... it seemed more like 20-25 people from what we saw in season 6 where Tuvok was going around mind melding with the Maqui to do Tiero's brainwashing.

Though I have to agree that the size of the Maqui raider didn't really warrant that many people onboard - however, its also possible that this was a larger version of the design compared to a simple raider which was comparable to a runabout - it certainly seemed much larger than a Runabout (which should be able to fit into VOY's shuttlebay).

 

[Oddish]

I think it's stated somewhere that there were 30 surviving Maquis on Chakotay's ship. That put the starting combined crew around 150.

 

[The Wormhole]

I've generally assumed there were thirty or so Maquis on Voyager, though I've known some people who take the "half the crew" statements literally and assume that means there's 75 Maquis. But really, Chakotay's ship didn't look large enough to fit 75.

 

[Tenacity]

The raider was the opposite of Voyager, the crew of the raider need to be large to handle it and therefor was stuffed in, while Voyager was fairly huge and only needed a crew of 150.