Put yourself in their boots. You’re down on your luck. You’re down, in fact, in every way. You’re addicted to alcohol or drugs, or perhaps your thoughts alone make you unreliable, volatile, unpredictable.
It’s been going on for quite some time. Gradually, those who love you have given up, and you’ve become isolated, truly alone.
And now you’ve committed a crime. You’ve been caught and charged with a misdemeanor, maybe even a felony.
You’re down in every way. Rock bottom. Lost.
But, you’re also a vet. At some time in a proud past now clouded by current misery, you were strong and confident and successful.
By now, you may have forgotten that phase of your life. The professionals at the Veterans Treatment Court of Western Massachusetts have not.
“This court has been set up in recognition of the service and dedication that you have given to your country as a member of the Armed Services,” reads the court’s Participant Manual. “All members of the VTC team are committed to your success in the program and your continued success after graduation.”
This court has been set up to help you.
The website of the Massachusetts Judicial Branch describes specialty courts as “problem-solving court sessions.” The state’s five Veterans Treatment Courts, a type of specialty court, focus on vets and the specific types of issues they are more likely to face — post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and military sexual trauma.
The idea is to help each vet deal successfully with those problems, and in so doing, improve public safety.
“Veterans have raised their hands and have said they would give their lives to our country,” Judge Laurie MacLeod told Gazette reporter Emily Cutts recently. “What the people who talked about planning a veterans treatment court was, ‘Let’s give them the support they need. Let’s re-engage them, let’s help build them back up, rather than just treat their symptoms or treat their crime or punish their crime.’”
What a terrific idea.
MacLeod is the presiding judge of the Western Massachusetts Veterans Treatment Court. It’s housed at Holyoke District Court, serves Hampshire, Hampden and Franklin counties and has been in business since 2015. About a dozen vets have completed the program.
Why so few, one might ask. Well, the Veterans Treatment Court doesn’t make it easy. It takes a year and a half to get through the program. Though each vet is supported by a personal mentor, probation officer and an array of therapy, legal and counseling services, it’s a long, hard road.
Each vet receives a clinical assessment, and the team designs a service plan that the vet must follow. According to the court’s Participant Manual, during the 60 days of Phase I of the program, the vet must meet each week with his or her probation officer and mentor. Drug and/or alcohol testing occurs twice weekly. There are monthly home visits.
The list of requirements grows from Phase II through Phase V of the 18-month plan. To graduate from one phase and proceed to the next, the vet must complete the criteria (the first for all phases is “Show Up & Be Honest”) and achieve increasingly long stretches of sobriety, from 14, to 30, to 45, to 60, to 90 consecutive days.
“Eighteen months, it takes a long time but now that it is all said and done, I feel like I have actually accomplished something and at my age I can actually do something to make a positive notch on my life,” said former Navy man Dale Green, 59, of Easthampton, upon completing the program in September. “It’s been a real positive experience,” he said. “You see people grow here, right before your eyes.”
We applaud the professionals of the court and everyone on the team. We applaud their smart, well-executed alternative legal process.
Most of all, we applaud the vets who once served us, the vets who need our help now.