WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has revised its policy for recruits who must get waivers for past bad behavior, but officials stopped short of eliminating waiver requirements for petty crimes, The Associated Press has learned.

Roughly half of Marine recruits require waivers to join, largely because more than a third of recruits require a waiver for previous drug use.

Officials have now decided to create four waiver categories for major misconduct, misconduct, traffic offenses and non-traffic offenses. Under the new policy, each branch of the armed forces will set its own guidelines on what behavior requires a waiver, as long as it can assign each offense to one of the four categories.