Introduction of Veterans Court: Objectives and Eligibility in Australia

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Objectives of Veterans Court and Why/Why not it should be introduced in Australia?
There are a number of organizations that that involved in veteran courts. These include the judge,
prosecutor, defense counsel and the department of veterans affairs as well as some other
community based support organization. The Objective of establishing veteran courts is to
rehabilitate and restore veterans as the contributing an active members of the community.
The focus of veteran Courts program is on the veterans entered the criminal justice system.
Therefore, the veteran court supervises the treatment plan for dealing with causes of the behavior
of veterans and substance abuse. Some of the issues that are generally handled by the treatment
programs are:
 Post traumatic stress disorder,
 Anger issues,
 Traumatic brain injury,
 Drug abuse,
 Alcohol abuse,
 Domestic violence
In this way, the veteran courts provide a chance to the veterans for returning to the community in
a more beneficial and advantages manner. For this purpose, these courts focus on the basic

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problems that play a role in the involvement with the criminal justice system and provide
particular rehabilitation programs (Ahlin and Douds, 2018).
The veteran courts have been allowed to operate differently, according to the needs of individual
jurisdiction. The veterans who have their cases in the jurisdictions that do not have a veterans
court, are required to address the case within the court and eligible for a hearing by the veterans
court. At the same time, each Court establishes it's own eligibility rules. However, in general, a
veteran is required to make a request for being based on the veteran Court program. The judge
comma prosecutor and defense counsel are all required to agree that veteran court is the most
appropriate forum to manage the particular case.
A veteran remains eligible for a hearing by the veteran’s court if satisfactory progress has been
made under the treatment program ordered by the court and also by complying with the other
requirements mentioned by the veteran’s court. In this regard, it needs to be noted that the
veterans do not have a right according to which there case should be assigned to the veteran’s
court. Therefore once case has been assigned to the veterans court, it is required that the veteran
should continuously earn the privilege to be heard by the Veterans Court by complying with all
the requirements of the court (Douds and Ahlin, 2015).
Eligible veterans can take part in the court by making a voluntary request that their case should
be transferred to the veteran's court. This court meets as a separate court docket. Each case is
evaluated by the prosecutor and the defense counsel. Both of them are required to agree that the
case is appropriate for being heard by the veteran's court. Then the case is presented before the
judge for final approval. Then the veteran’s justice outreach specialist of the Department of

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Veterans Affairs verifies the eligibility of the veteran for the veteran’s benefits and an initial
evaluation of the treatment requirements of the veteran is conducted. If found eligible for VA
benefits, the veteran is then directed to the local VA medical facility so that more in-depth
evaluation can be conducted. On the basis of this evaluation, the parties agree regarding a
treatment plan that is going to be presented to the judge. After the judge approves the plan, the
veteran starts the treatment program that has been described in the plan (Blue-Howells, Clark,
Berk-Clark and McGuire, 2013).
The progress that has been made in the treatment program is closely monitored by the court. In
case of any non-compliance with the treatment program, sanctions can be imposed. These
include incarceration, community service or reprimand by the judge. On the other hand, if there
is continuous non-compliance, it is possible to remove the veteran from the veteran's court. In
such a case, any favorable terms of a plea agreement can be revoked and a sentence can be
imposed (Cavanaugh, 2011). In case of the SSO completion of the veteran court program, the
divergent eligible veterans can have the case against them dismissed. On probation, the veterans
may have the probation terminated successfully. The veterans, whose cases are being hired by
the veteran's court can expect to be subject to more frequent reviews by the court for monitoring
the progress made by the veteran in the treatment program. The veterans who have made
satisfactory progress are recognized by the court. They are also offered words of encouragement
by the Judge. On the other hand, the veterans who have not made satisfactory progress may
expect encouragement of completely different nature and it is also possible to impose sanctions
against them (Clark, 2015).
At this point, it needs to be mentioned that significant differences are present between the mental
health courts, drug courts and the veterans treatment courts. There are certain key components