By Kimberly Torres
WASHINGTON, D.C – The Council on Criminal Justice has released a statement outlining CCJ’s two-year (Veterans Justice) Commission…”to assess the extent and nature of veterans’ justice-system involvement, the adequacy of support for service members as they return home, and the effectiveness of the system response when veterans break the law.”
“While there have been innovations and improvements in how we manage and support justice-involved veterans in recent years, the situation remains appalling…We can and must do better for the men and women who put their lives at risk to serve our nation,” according to former Defense Secretary and White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta.
A report released earlier this year, Honoring Service, Advancing Safety: Supporting Veterans From Arrest Through Sentencing, is the first of three the Commission plans to produce.
Subsequent recommendations will examine problems veterans face during their transition from military to civilian life and challenges at the “back end” of the justice system, “from incarceration through reentry,” the Commission said.
“America’s civilian justice system fails to adequately identify veterans, steer them away from prosecution and incarceration, and coordinate or research the effectiveness of programs attempting to support them,” it added.
“While data-based tools exist to verify a person’s veteran status, only 9 of the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies and 11 percent of its 3,100 jails report using them, relying instead on veterans to self-identify, the commission said.
But, it added, many veterans fail to do so because of shame or fear of losing benefits” which was reported by an operating veteran-specific diversion program.
The Commission elaborated, “As a result of these and other holes in the system, veterans miss out on diversion opportunities or treatment targeting the service-related trauma and other conditions that often drive their criminal behavior.”
The Commission, led by former Defense Secretary and U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel and Panetta, issued three recommendations to address these and other challenges confronting veterans at the “front end” of the criminal justice system, from arrest through sentencing.
The Commission had three suggestions as to how the civilian justice system could elevate its programs in order to better cater to veterans, the first of which was “[t]o improve identification of veterans when they come in contact with the justice system, Congress should authorize a study to evaluate the effectiveness of databases that capture veteran status, order necessary improvements, and incentivize their use by local and state agencies.”
The second suggestion was how the “[s]tates and the federal government should pass laws expanding or creating opportunities for veterans to avoid prosecution, conviction, or incarceration if they complete programs, including VTCs, requiring them to take responsibility for their actions and address issues underlying their criminal offending…courts should (also) be permitted to consider combat exposure and other military experiences a mitigating factor at sentencing, including in cases involving violence.”
The final recommendation noted “reliable data on justice-involved veterans is sorely lacking,” and the Commission recommended that the federal government establish a National Center on Veterans Justice to fund research and identify effective program interventions. The center also would “facilitate coordination among the tens of thousands of veteran support groups in the U.S.”
