Is false imprisonment considered domestic violence?

It falls under domestic violence and is legally considered domestic violence. However, you should work with a military recruiter on this issue.

While every state is different I am fairly confident this is considered DV. U should fully disclose this tour recruiter.

Any crime that is committed against a spouse, former spouse, cohabitant or former cohabitant is considered domestic violence. So a false imprisonment on a person who you are or were married to or who you live with or used to live with was the victim then it is considered domestic violence. I do not know what affect, if any, this classification has with the military.

Yes, it is domestic violence and you should just disclose the facts up front. Any concealment would be damaging, but you might be able to work through it by informing the recruiter of all the facts and providing the paperwork.

A person is prohibited from military service for a conviction of a "misdemeanor crime of domestic violence" (MCDV). This is because a person with a MCDV conviction is prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law pursuant to 18 USC 922(g)(9). And there is no exception for military service in 18 USC 925(a)(1) for such a conviction. MCDV is a specifically defined phrase under federal law and is defined as follows in 18 USC 921(33)(A)(i) as "an offense that-- (i) is a misdemeanor under Federal, State, or Tribal law; and (ii) has, as an element, the use or attempted use of physical force, or the threatened use of a deadly weapon, committed by a current or former spouse, parent, or guardian of the victim, by a person with whom the victim shares a child in common, by a person who is cohabiting with or has cohabited with the victim as a spouse, parent, or guardian, or by a person similarly situated to a spouse, parent, or guardian of the victim." The key phrase is "has, as an element, the use or attempted use of physical force, or the threatened use of a deadly weapon." As you state above, you were not convicted of California's domestic violence charge of 273.5 but instead received a conviction for false imprisonment under 236. "False imprisonment is the unlawful violation of the personal liberty of another." There is no element of the use or attempted use of physical force, or attempted use of a deadly weapon, when false imprisonment is charged as a misdemeanor. Only when false imprisonment is charged as a straight felony does it require "violence, menace, fraud, or deceit." (PC 237) Because your conviction does not have, as an element the "force" requirement for an MCDV conviction, it should not be considered a MCDV for purposes of firearm ownership and military recruitment purposes. If there is any doubt of this one only need to turn to the recent highly publicized events concerning San Francisco Sheriff Mirkarimi and his Domestic Violence case. He was originally charged with domestic violence and pled to a false imprisonment misdemeanor conviction. He is still eligible to possess firearms. Nevertheless, the conviction itself could possibly prove problematic when applying to join the armed forces, at the very least the confusion it can cause if the recruiter mistakenly believes the conviction to be a firearm prohibiting offense. You should have an attorney on stand-by to explain that this is NOT a conviction that carries with it a firearm restriction.