Two police officers who were dismissed for returning a naked and dazed 14-year-old boy to the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer were ordered reinstated today by a judge who called their dismissals too harsh.

Reserve Judge Robert Parins of Green Bay also awarded the officers about $55,000 each in back pay.

The boy was killed shortly after the officers, Joseph T. Gabrish and John A. Balcerzak, left him with Mr. Dahmer in May 1991. Mr. Dahmer, who killed four others before being caught two months later, said at his 1992 trial that he had fooled the officers by telling them that the youth was his drunken adult lover.

"It is shocking to one's sense of fairness," Judge Parins said of the dismissals. He was appointed by the director of state courts to hear the case because he is not from Milwaukee County.

Judge Parins said that the officers had made mistakes but that it was unfair to judge them in hindsight. He said they should be suspended for 60 days at most.