Veterans Treatment Courts are often praised as the solution.
And for some veterans, they help.
But there is a hard truth behind the praise: many of these programs are built for the easier cases.
The acceptable veteran.
The nonviolent charge.
The person whose trauma is visible enough to explain, but not ugly enough to frighten.
But severe trauma does not always present as a sympathetic misdemeanor.
PTSD does not always look like quiet sadness.
TBI does not always look like confusion.
Moral injury does not always look like regret.
Sometimes trauma looks like rage.
Sometimes it looks like addiction.
Sometimes it looks like violence.
Sometimes it looks like someone the system would rather punish than understand.
When diversion programs exclude veterans with serious or violent charges, they may exclude the very people carrying the deepest and most complicated wounds.
That is the illusion: America gets to say it has a special court for veterans while still sending many of the most damaged veterans into the ordinary punishment machine.
We should not only save the easy cases.
We should have the courage to confront the hard ones.
Key point: Veterans Treatment Courts can help, but eligibility limits often leave many justice-involved veterans outside the door.
Source note: VA National Center for PTSD; Veterans Treatment Court research.
