Onondaga County opened its first veterans’ treatment court in June to rehabilitate veterans who have committed crimes instead of sentencing them to prison time.

One of 34 courts in New York state, the Syracuse Veterans’ Treatment Court gives veterans who have committed non-violent crimes the option of spending a minimum of one year in treatment. Offenders are only admitted to the program if they plead guilty to their top charge.

The formation of a court in Onondaga County is an example of a national movement toward courts that work with offenders to understand the root causes of criminal behavior, said Mike Mordue, assistant district attorney for the treatment court. Planning for the court began in January 2019, and was partially motivated by federal grants and orders, he said.

“There has always been a general misunderstanding of veterans,” Mordue said. “Regular civilians are unable to understand what they’re going through, and vets aren’t willing to talk to them.”

An estimated 181,500 veterans are incarcerated across the country, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. A third of veterans in the U.S. do not have access to a treatment court, City and State New York reported.

Buffalo City Court Judge Robert Russell formed New York’s first veterans’ treatment court in 2008 after realizing that many people who came through Buffalo’s Drug Treatment Court were veterans, said Derek Coy, veterans’ health officer at New York State Health Foundation. Onondaga County’s veterans’ court is modeled on Buffalo’s successful practices, he said.

The increase in the number of veterans’ courts across the country is “driven by having uniformity in the way we treat veterans,” said Syracuse City Court Judge Ted Limpert, the presiding judge over Syracuse’s treatment court and an Air Force veteran.

“We want veterans to re-integrate in a meaningful way,” Limpert said. “We want to make sure they actively engage so that we can help with their other struggles like getting them employment.”

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Veterans’ courts create an environment that replicates the military, with a strong chain of command, strict orders of where patients need to be and incentives or sanctions based on whether participants meet the program’s expectations, Coy said.

Syracuse’s court also assigns veteran mentors to assist those in the treatment program, Mordue said. The main reason people are admitted to the court is addiction, he said.

“When they are done with the program, they will have the tools they need to be successful,” Mordue said.

Preceding Onondaga County’s veterans’ court was the Veteran’s Diversion Program, which existed to aid combat veterans. The updated court recognizes that non-combat veterans also experience mental health and physical health problems, as well as alcoholism and illegal substance abuse, Mordue said.

Alternatives of regular criminal courts, like veterans’ courts, aren’t expensive to maintain, he said. Most of the Syracuse court’s treatment work is through the Syracuse Veterans Affairs Medical Center and is funded by participants’ insurance.

Syracuse’s court works in close partnership with the VA to determine which criminal cases are eligible for the program, Mordue said. The court is still changing as it takes on new cases, he said.

“It’s a brand-new court that’s going to take some learning about and tweaking,” Mordue said.

A lot of the work involves coordinating a treatment plan for participants, Limpert said. He believes the Onondaga County court is going to lower re-offending rates in Syracuse. He said he doesn’t want to fail veterans who have served their country.

Veterans’ courts are successful, and this type of court could work for non-veterans as well, Coy said.

“It’s kind of crazy to think that it’s more expensive to incarcerate someone for a year than it is to send them to Harvard,” Coy said.

Published on December 3, 2019 at 8:35 pm