The authors of a study on suicide attempts and recent involvement with the criminal justice system suggest that the period following an arrest and through arraignment, adjudication, and re-entry to the community represents an important opportunity for the assessment and treatment of suicide risk. Their research revealed that people involved with the justice system but not incarcerated (i.e. returned to live in the community) are much more likely to report a suicide attempt during the past year than people who have not been arrested.

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The tattoo on the inside of Justin York’s left arm is hard to discern. Glancing at it one way, you can see the word “Life.” If you look at it another way, it reads “Death.”

If you look at it without knowing how to read it, it looks like an ornate, inky blue blur.

Life and death blurred together for the 25-year-old U.S. Army veteran to such a degree that he left his beloved Army with an extreme rating for post-traumatic stress disorder, making him unable to continue wearing the uniform.

Now he finds himself trapped inside an Adams County Jail cell, in an unwanted uniform of a different color.

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More than a hundred Rhode Island veterans who have been arrested for crimes like domestic assault or drunken driving have benefited from a special court that offers them therapy, counseling and a chance to wipe clean their criminal records.

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Like Operation Recovery in Mecklenburg County, Worcester District Court in MA has a program, Mission Direct Vet, to divert veterans from jail.  This article gives examples of how the structure of this program has helped two of its graduates turn their lives around.

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La Crosse Tribune, 27 January 2013

“Two tours in Iraq left John suffering post-traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism. He was a successful retired U.S. Army master sergeant who found himself home and in trouble with the law. A family member searching for resources discovered the La Crosse Area Veterans Court Program. John, who spoke on condition his real name not be used because of the sensitivity of his situation, was accepted into the specialized treatment court after taking responsibility for a felony drunken driving offense. Similar to a drug court, the veterans court seeks to rehabilitate offenders through treatment programs rather than simply punish them with fines or jail.”

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People in prisons and jails are four times more likely to have a substance use disorder than the general public, yet services for this population are sorely lacking, according to experts at George Mason University. They have developed several screening tools designed to improve substance use treatment in the criminal justice system.
Both treatment and justice agencies would benefit from screening for criminal justice risk, as well as substance use disorders, according to Faye Taxman, PhD, of the university’s Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence! (ACE!) program in Fairfax, Virginia. “More than 30 percent of offenders could benefit from residential treatment, but less than 5 percent in prison, jail or community corrections have access to such services,” she says.

Local courts have yet to host a veterans court, but local veterans hope to find their way into a specially created court anyway.

Two local veterans have asked to be taken to a segregated area of the Kennebec County Jail in Augusta and appear before the state’s only veterans court judge, Justice Nancy Mills.

Kennebec County Sheriff Randall Liberty has hosted people from York, Somerset and Waldo counties in his “vet block.” And he’s ready to accept people from Androscoggin County into his program at the Augusta jail, if they qualify.

It would be the first such move for local veterans since the Maine Legislature approved the vet court plan in March 2012.

Following what is quickly becoming a nation-wide trend in the U.S., the Indian Creek Correctional Center in Chesapeake, Virginia, recently opened a veterans-only dorm to house prisoners who are former soldiers. In dedicating the new wing, state correctional officials announced that they hoped that the veterans-only facility will help veterans complete their sentences and avoid prison in future. Along with Virginia, other U.S. states including Florida and Georgia have also opened up veterans-only prison facilities to address the rising problem of returning military veterans who get in trouble with the law.

A decade ago, gripped by alcoholism and drug addiction, Navy veteran Albert Krull contemplated jumping off the Tobin Bridge spanning the Mystic River in Boston.

Instead, Krull decided to seek treatment at the nearby Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Bedford, Mass., where today he serves as a peer counselor for other veterans at the same hospital that helped restore his life.

Jason Zimmerman, an Army medic who served in both Bosnia and Iraq, experienced horrors he said most civilians cannot begin to comprehend, such as “your friends dying, no matter what you do.”

Zimmerman said he figured these experiences would fade with time, but they didn’t. He first sought counsel with a chaplain at Fort Bragg, N.C., and then with other veterans who understood the overwhelming terror of combat. The support he received from those encounters helped as he struggled with both deep depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.