Buffalo NY offers treatment instead of jail for veterans

City launches treatment court for vets

By Matthew Daneman - USA Today
Posted : Monday Jun 2, 2008 12:42:38 EDT

BUFFALO, N.Y. — When police entered Tom Irish’s suburban Buffalo home March 9 responding to a call about a disturbance, the 59-year-old Army veteran says he did not see uniformed officers.

He says he was drunk on vodka, suffering from a flashback to his wartime experiences, and saw in his mind the Viet Cong soldiers he fought close to 40 years ago.

“I’m still in recovery, still facing myself,” Irish said as he stood last month before Buffalo City Court Judge Robert Russell in a courtroom half-filled with fellow military veterans in trouble with the law.

Instead of time behind bars, Irish is in counseling. The felony weapons possession charge against him — for brandishing a loaded shotgun at police — likely will be dropped if he finishes everything required of him by Buffalo’s veterans treatment court, according to Hank Pirowski, project director for Buffalo City Court.

Russell, who created Buffalo’s drug treatment court in 1995 and mental health treatment court in 2003, started holding sessions in January in what is, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Drug Court Institute, the nation’s first veterans’ treatment court.

The defendants all are military veterans or family members. The court typically handles nonviolent offenses, Russell said, with the veterans required to get mental health or addiction counseling, find jobs, stay clean and sober and get their lives back on track.

Court meets weekly or biweekly, with veterans reporting back about once a month to update the court on their progress, Russell said. The judge said that, based on his past experience with other treatment courts, the veterans tend to remain in treatment court a year or more before making enough progress to graduate and see their charges reduced or cases adjourned.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/06/gns_vetscourt_060208/