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VA Programs for Justice-Involved Veterans

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Intersections between Mental Health and Law among Veterans

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the Veterans Justice Programs, through which the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs conducts outreach to justice-involved veterans and facilitates their access to treatment and other services. These programs are considered against the backdrop of historical trends in justice involvement among veterans, and the development and growth of Veteran-focused criminal justice programming such as Veterans Treatment Courts and Veteran-specific housing units in prisons and jails. The structure and functions of the Veterans Justice Programs are detailed, along with data showing their impacts on justice-involved Veterans’ access to mental health and substance use disorder treatment.

To identify justice-involved Veterans and contact them through outreach, in order to facilitate access to VA services at the earliest possible point. Veterans Justice Programs accomplish this by building and maintaining partnerships between VA and key elements of the criminal justice system.

—Mission Statement, Veterans Justice Programs

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Abbreviations

BJS:

Bureau of Justice Statistics

CHALENG:

Community Homelessness Assessment, Local Education and Networking Groups

FY:

Fiscal Year

HCRV:

Health Care for Reentry Veterans

MLP:

Medical-Legal Partnership

VA:

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

VHA:

Veterans Health Administration

VJO:

Veterans Justice Outreach

VJP:

Veterans Justice Programs

VTC:

Veterans Treatment Court

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Veterans Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Lexington VA Medical Center (122-HP-LD), Lexington, KY, USA

    Sean Clark

  2. Clinical Operations, VHA Homeless Programs, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Bessie Flatley

Authors
  1. Sean Clark
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  2. Bessie Flatley
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sean Clark .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Veterans Affairs National Center on Homelessness Among Veterans, Tampa, FL, USA, Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA

    Jack Tsai

  2. Veterans Benefits Attorney, Loxley Services, and Major U.S. Army Reserve, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Evan R. Seamone

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Clark, S., Flatley, B. (2019). VA Programs for Justice-Involved Veterans. In: Tsai, J., Seamone, E. (eds) Intersections between Mental Health and Law among Veterans. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31664-8_3

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