Making the Case Justice For Veterans

A jail that helps veterans heal their mental wounds
CBS News
Katti Gray
Crime Reporter
September 17, 2015

Jailed Vets, 10 percent of America's incarcerated population

A year to the day after his baby brother was shot dead in a Kansas prairie town, German Villegas' best buddy in Afghanistan, U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Michael J. Palacios, was killed by a bomb he'd been ordered to find and defuse.

"We were both on the list to search for explosives," Villegas recalled.

But it was Palacios who was ultimately dispatched that day in November 2012. "He got hit by a 200-pound IED," two months before both men were slated to go home, Villegas said.

Villegas returned stateside, a shattered man.

"My number-one goal was to get drunk and just try to forget everything," said the 23-year-old, who joined the Marines straight out of high school and spent five years in the service. Fired from the military police, he was shunted into what he calls "punitive duties" that had him cleaning up after battalion officers and picking up trash.

But the worst were the funeral details.

"(That) was the completely wrong thing for me to have to do," he continued. "Every time I did one of these funerals, I'm seeing these families crying. I became pretty good at compartmentalizing -- or so I thought."

Generally, the veterans volunteer to be diverted to such units through special veterans-only treatment courts -- about 220 exist around the country -- that form another arm of a broad and growing strategy to keep as many criminally accused former military personnel as possible out from behind bars. That strategy is being pursued as the nation grapples with how to balance citizen demands for public safety with efforts to pare incarceration costs, incarceration rates, and the risks that those released from prison will return to crime.

In that quest, veterans have emerged as a prime target.

For one thing, their service and sacrifice make it hard for would-be critics of "perks" for prisoners to scoff at programs aimed at incarcerated veterans' uplift, said Melissa Fitzgerald, senior director of Fairfax, Va.-based Justice for Vets.
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