Veterans Treatment Courts: Goals, Critique & Australian Application

This presentation provides a critical analysis of Veterans Treatment Courts, focusing on their objectives, operation, and sociological perspectives. It examines the mental health challenges faced by war veterans and how these courts aim to address them, preventing their entry into the criminal justice system through rehabilitation. The presentation explores the structure and function of these courts, contrasting them with traditional forms of punishment and highlighting theories of rehabilitation. It also evaluates the current veterans' treatment system in Australia, identifying its limitations in addressing mental health and delinquent behavior. Finally, it argues for the implementation of Veterans Treatment Courts in Australia to fill these gaps, providing specialized support and preventing substance abuse and other deviations from a normal life, making it a valuable resource for students studying criminal justice and sociology, available on Desklib along with other study materials.

VETERANS TREATMENT
COURTS
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

OVERVIEW
 The presentation is concerned with the Veterans Treatment Court and
objectives.
 It also strives to analyse the mental health problems relating to war
veterans.
 In addition, it discusses the structure of the programme.
 It enumerates application of this form of punishment.
 Moreover, this presentation strives to present a sociological perspective
of the programme.
 This assignment analyses the veteran treatment in Australia, its
limitation and the implementation of this structure in its place.

VETERANS TREATMENT COURTS
 It is a collaborative process which has been introduced by the associate
Judge of Buffalo City Court, namely Judge Robert Russell in 2009.
 It involves the defence, the prosecution, Judge, counsel, Department of
Veteran Affairs and different support organizations (Yerramsetti et al., 2017).
 The reason for which the programme has been introduced in order to
rehabilitate the war veterans.
 Focusses to prevent the affinity of the war veterans to enter the criminal
justice system.
 Strives to achieve the same by addressing the mental element that leads to
such a delinquent behaviour (Timko et al., 2016).

OBJECTIVES OF VETERANS
TREATMENT COURTS
 Support the mental health conditions of the war veterans (Gallagher, 2016).
 Prevent the war veterans from entering the criminal justice system.
 Rehabilitation of the war veterans.
 Restore them to their normal course of life.
 Help them to adapt with their surroundings (Kratcoski, 2017).
 Prevent them from submission to drug abuse, alcoholism and other delinquent activities.
 The experience in military service led to traumatic brain disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
 Affinity to use of substance.
 Affinity to surrender to the criminal justice system (Vaughan, Bell Holleran & Brooks, 2016).
 Affinity to delinquent behaviour like alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence and others.
 Inability to adapt with the surrounding environment.

STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF THE
PROGRAMME
 Appear before the court on a regular basis.
 Attend sessions relating to the treatment regularly (Loy and Davis,
2015).
 Random and frequent drug tests and alcohol tests.
 Allows jurisdiction to certain sections of the justice.
 Specialty courts are being established.
 Veterans treatment courts connect the benefits, programs and services
(Barrett, 2017).

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE:
DIFFERENT FORMS OF PUNISHEMNT
 Retribution: provides victims with the satisfaction that the offender has
been deprived of something (Zaibert, 2016).
 Deterrence: compelling the offenders to follow the law.
 Rehabilitation: helps the offenders to overcome their criminality.
 Retribution: more of a vengeance against a wrongdoing.
 Incapacitation: prevents the commission of future crimes by moving the
offenders physically from the society (Cohen, 2017).

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE:
VETERANS TREATMENT COURTS AS A
FORM OF PUNISHMENT
 Rehabilitation of the veterans.
 Tries to remove the criminality by addressing to their psychological
distress.
 Regular check on the alcoholism, substance use and other deviating
activities.
 Addressing to their mental disorder caused due to the trauma of the
war.
 Bringing them back to the normal course of life.
 Removing their delinquent behaviour (Kaiser and Holtfreter, 2016.).

THEORIES OF REHABILITATION
 There are few theories that have backed the rehabilitation form of
punishment.
 One of the theories are treatment theory
 The other one is enablement theory.
 Treatment theory targets a specific class of individuals.
 Enablement theory involves addressing of the relationships by creating
different strata in the society.

VETERANS TREATMENT IN
AUSTRALIA
 The Department of Veterans regulates the treatment process of the
veterans.
 Provides for supplement and allowances to the war veterans, which
includes rent allowances, pension allowances, medical allowances,
veterans supplement and certain other allowances (Loughnan, 2016).
 Provides several concessional cards to the veterans.
 Extends financial assistance to the veterans.
 Loans and insurance schemes have been specially designed.
 Other services includes community nursing, veterans home care and
other services.

LIMITATIONS IN AUSTRALIAN
VETERANS TREATMENT
 Fails to address the mental disorder relating to the veterans due to the
trauma of the war.
 Fails to address their delinquent behaviour, which in turn leads them to
submit to the criminal justice system.
 Lacks any provision for special courts addressing them.
 Makes no effort to help them to adapt with the environment.
 Does not strive to prevent them from substance abuse, domestic
violence, alcoholism and other deviations from the normal course of life
(Phelps, 2018).

IMPLEMENTATION OF THIS
PROGRAMME IN AUSTRALIA
 Needed to fill the gaps that exist in the present system.
 Address the psychological crisis among the veterans.
 Prevention of the delinquent behaviour refraining them from submitting
to the criminal justice system.
 Special courts will be provided to address the unique situation of the
veterans (Baldwin, 2017).
 Make them seasoned with their surroundings.
 Prevent them from submitting to substance abuse, domestic violence,
alcoholism and other deviations from the normal course of life.

REFERENCES
 Baldwin, J.M., 2017. Whom do they serve? A national examination of veterans treatment court participants and their challenges. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 28(6),
pp.515-554.
 Barrett, B., 2017. Veteran Treatment Court Programs in Texas: An Exploratory Research Project.
 Cohen, S., 2017. Punishment and Social Control: Essays in Honor of Sheldon L. Messinger. Routledge.
 Gallagher, J.M., 2016. Procedural Justice, Veteran Identity and Legal Legitimacy in Veteran Treatment Courts (Doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University).
 Kaiser, K.A. and Holtfreter, K., 2016. An integrated theory of specialized court programs: Using procedural justice and therapeutic jurisprudence to promote offender
compliance and rehabilitation. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 43(1), pp.45-62.
 Kratcoski, P.C., 2017. Diverting Special Categories of Offenders to Community Treatment Programs. In Correctional Counseling and Treatment (pp. 93-112). Springer,
Cham.
 Loughnan, A., 2016. 'Society Owes Them Much': Veteran Defendants and Criminal Responsibility in Australia in the Twentieth Century.
 Loy, A.M. and Davis, W., 2015. Montgomery County's Veterans Treatment Court Offers Opportunity For A Second Chance.
 Phelps, A.J., Steel, Z., Metcalf, O., Alkemade, N., Kerr, K., O'donnell, M., Nursey, J., Cooper, J., Howard, A., Armstrong, R. and Forbes, D., 2018. Key patterns and
predictors of response to treatment for military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder: a growth mixture modelling approach. Psychological medicine, 48(1),
pp.95-103.
 Phelps, A.J., Steel, Z., Metcalf, O., Alkemade, N., Kerr, K., O'donnell, M., Nursey, J., Cooper, J., Howard, A., Armstrong, R. and Forbes, D., 2018. Key patterns and
predictors of response to treatment for military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder: a growth mixture modelling approach. Psychological medicine, 48(1),
pp.95-103.
 Shannon, L.M., Birdwhistell, S., Hulbig, S.K., Jones, A.J., Newell, J. and Payne, C., 2017. Examining implementation and preliminary performance indicators of veterans
treatment courts: The Kentucky experience. Evaluation and program planning, 63, pp.54-66.
 Timko, C., Flatley, B., Tjemsland, A., McGuire, J., Clark, S., Blue-Howells, J., Blonigen, D.M., Rosenthal, J. and Finlay, A., 2016. A Longitudinal Examination of Veterans
Treatment Courts’ Characteristics and Eligibility Criteria. Justice Research and Policy, 17(2), pp.123-136.
 Van Dyke, K. and Orrick, E.A., 2017. An Examination of the Influence of Veteran Status on Offense Type Among an Inmate Sample. American Journal of Criminal Justice,
42(2), pp.426-442.
 Vaughan, T.J., Bell Holleran, L. and Brooks, R., 2016. Exploring therapeutic and militaristic contexts in a veteran treatment court. Criminal Justice Policy Review,
p.0887403416640585.
 Yerramsetti, A.P., Simons, D.D., Coonan, L. and Stolar, A., 2017. Veteran treatment courts: A promising solution. Behavioral sciences & the law, 35(5-6), pp.512-522.
 Zaibert, L., 2016. Punishment and retribution. Routledge.
 Hooff, M. V., McFarlane, A. C., Davies, C. E., Searle, A. K., Fairweather-Schmidt, A. K., Verhagen, A., Benassi, H., … Hodson, S. E. (2014). The Australian Defence Force
Mental Health Prevalence and Wellbeing Study: design and methods. European journal of psychotraumatology, 5, 10.3402/ejpt.v5.23950. doi:10.3402/ejpt.v5.23950