The case for veterans courts

Daily Herald Editorial Board

Why should veterans who’ve committed nonviolent crimes be entitled to special services to help them stay out of jail and, eventually, have their criminal records erased?

Because we owe it to them. They’ve earned a chance to turn around their lives because of what they’ve done for us — in some cases suffering ills such as post-traumatic stress disorder, which might contribute to aggressive behavior.

Because it saves money. Many of the special services come courtesy of the federal Department of Veterans Affairs, and avoiding repeat offenses saves Cook County $850,000 a year on jail costs, Mark Kammerer of the Cook County state’s attorney’s office told staff writer Tony Gordon.

And because there’s solid evidence that it works, according to Kammerer and reports from some of the other 45 veterans courts in 22 states that show those who succeed at the program have a good chance of staying out of jail.

“There has not been a downside,” Kammerer said of the Cook County veterans court, whose participants have had just four new felony arrests since operations began in February 2009.

Now, Lake County plans to create a veterans court, meant to divert former military men and women away from the criminal justice system by treating underlying problems. Typically, veterans accused of nonviolent crimes plead guilty and are sentenced to probation, which comes with mental health or substance abuse treatment, job training, rigid discipline and close monitoring. Upon “graduation,” offenders usually are able to have convictions removed from their records.

The trend comes at a time when Illinois pays nearly $21,000 to house an inmate for a year. It follows a 2009 early-release program that set inmates free without such support programs, ending in a mess of new offenses and allegations of mismanagement.

Veterans are a significant part of the criminal court docket and made up 10 percent of state prisoners in 2004, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ most recent report.

Critics point out that it’s not fair for the other 90 percent of offenders to miss out on a chance at redemption simply because they never wore the uniform.

That argument resonates. While we think veterans courts are worth investigating for other suburban court systems, it’s important that evidence showing they work be analyzed to see whether such interventions can help other groups of defendants.

Most suburban court systems are ahead of the game on that point, already operating similar interventions for offenders with mental health and substance abuse problems.

Assuming continued evidence that they work, such programs are humane ways of dealing with criminal justice. That they also save money is icing on the cake.