MAUNA LANI — Veterans of America’s wars often are entangled in the criminal justice system, and the Hawaii Judiciary is trying to make sure those soldiers integrate back into normal society.
That was the focus of training sessions held at Mauna Lani Bay Hotel on Thursday and Friday during the first Big Island Veterans Treatment Court Conference, where judges, law enforcement officials, probation officers, attorneys, researchers, and substance abuse treatment providers came to learn about the latest evidence-based best practices for effectively dealing with veterans struggling to readjust to life outside the military.
“We have to have this program,” Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald told the gathered staff and participants during the event hosted by the The Big Island Veterans Treatment Court of the Third Circuit.
The service members have earned the specialty court by their service. The court allows them to better integrate the services the VA and other groups provide. That, along with the case management style of justice, has proven effective, because bringing veterans into treatment can have a dramatic improvement on their lives, Recktenwald said.
Such treatment and care takes a lot of help.
A large part of that comes from the volunteer veteran mentors, who are veterans from outside the criminal justice system, there to lend their experience.
“To get another battle buddy, oh, what a gift that is,” Dr. Brian L. Meyer said, using the Army term for a system where soldiers are partnered together.
Meyer specializes in post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse for the Veteran’s Administration.
Chief Circuit Judge Ronald Ibarra runs the island’s veteran’s treatment court.
An Army veteran himself, he sees the continuation of the program as important for veterans and their community.
It’s an opportunity to determine what led to their behavior that brought them into the criminal justice system and correct it. Beyond saving money in prison costs, it returns them to taxpaying citizens who can be a healthy part of their communities. He also sees it as a repayment.
“When they served, they were ready to give the biggest sacrifice — their lives,” he said.
The program currently includes 16 veterans — nine in Hilo and seven in Kona. They’ve had one graduate so far, and the program is so new there is no information on how many re-offend.
One of the participants is Edward Schoeppner, a Vietnam combat veteran.
He grew up on a Kona coffee farm and enlisted in the Army a month after his graduation. While in the Army he began abusing drugs and alcohol, which continued after he came home.
“Just about all my life, since I came out, I’ve been on parole, probation or incarcerated,” he told the crowd.
He’d come to hate Ibarra, he said, who had sent him to prison.
But once he became involved in the veteran’s treatment court things began to turn around.
“Today, I got 292 days clean,” he said to applause.
His veteran mentor is Roger Pickard, an Air Force veteran.
“You look for your veteran’s back,” Pickard said.
And as the mentor does just that, the participants begin to watch out for each other, too. That helps recreate the camaraderie that existed in the military.
“I worked on a lot of good teams in my career,” Pickard said, which included as an accountant, corporate pilot and airline pilot. “The Air Force was the best.”
Sean Nathasingh, an Air Force veteran of Desert Storm, was already drinking before he was in the military and was reprimanded for underage drinking while in the service.
That drove him to be more secretive about his addiction. When he left the service he discovered everything was more difficult.
While in the Air Force, he simply had to ask his first sergeant, he said, and the matter would be taken care of. Outside he found himself floundering, eventually living homeless in his vehicle.
But his involvement in veteran’s court has helped him land on his feet and find part-time work as an electrical generator installer, even attending college.
Dan Kama is a member of the court’s advisory board and widely credited with bringing the program to the area.
He remembers being the only person to greet his cousin upon his return from Vietnam. George Mukai, a member of the Army’s 442nd Regimental Combat Team in World War II, became his mentor through veteran’s organizations.
So when Judge Edward Kubo approached Kama about organizing a veteran’s court, he believed it was the right thing to do.
“As a veteran you need to support your fellow veterans,” Kama said.
The conference focused, in part, on the unique work that Hawaii’s Big Island and Oahu Veterans Treatment Courts, and similar programs across the country, are doing to help restore veterans’ health, families and futures, while also saving taxpayer dollars. There was also training on the technical side of trauma. Meyer talked about how to understand and treat members with PTSD and traumatic brain injuries.
“This is really so critical, the concept of support,” he said.