← New Books Network
New Books Network
Jamie Rowen, "Worthy of Justice: The Politics of Veterans Treatment Courts in Practice" (Stanford UP, 2025)
00:25:08
Loading summary
Transcript21 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hello, everybody. This is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network. And if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts, and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form, and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:07]
B
Welcome to the New Books Network. I'm Stephen Pimpair, host of the Public Policy Channel, and we are joined today by Jamie Rowan, who is the author of Worthy of Justice, the Politics of Veterans Treatment Courts in Practice from Stanford University Press. Jamie, welcome. Thank you for joining us today.
- [01:24]
C
Thank you. It's a pleasure.
- [01:25]
B
So I wonder if you might start us off by telling folks a little bit about who you are and what you do and what brought you to this book project.
- [01:33]
C
Sure. So my background is in the study of how laws get implemented and what the lofty goals might be for any type of legal intervention and what the realities are. And my earlier work, interestingly, focused on what's called transitional justice. And I was interested in these weird quasi judicial mechanisms called truth commissions. So I wrote my first book looking at why truth commissions became a really popular response to mass atrocity and what it looks like in countries where activists and advocates decide and government. Governments decide that a truth commission will be useful. When I came to the University of Massachusetts, I decided that I didn't really want to study foreign settings as much anymore. I wanted to settle down a little bit. And yet I was still really interested in legal, new legal interventions. Right. Sort of the use of law to solve really complicated social problems. And I was interested in ideas of restorative justice and alternatives to the criminal legal system. And I had heard about these treatment courts. I'd already known about drug treatment courts, and then I started reading about these veterans treatment courts. And I had previously been working and living in Canada, where the government had taken some responsibility for Native Americans and said that they should be treated differently in the criminal legal system. And I thought that was interesting. And I was hearing a similar rationale for these veterans treatment courts, But I didn't know what I would find when I went to one. And so I went to one in my area, and I said, this is different than anything I've ever seen. These court courts are treating the people who have committed crimes with such dignity and respect and care, and they seem to have access to resources that other criminal legal defendants don't. And it led me to want to study them a little bit more.
- [03:23]
B
So I want. I want to have you describe the treatments courts you studied. But before that, I wonder if you might talk to us just a little bit about methods. What did you do, where did you go, who did you talk to, Et cetera.
- [03:36]
C
So when I started, I was looking at just one court, and I was trying to understand how this one court operated. How did it start? Because treatment courts have to be created, so somebody has to be a champion to create a treatment court. It costs money. You need to get resources from somewhere, whether it's the state, whether it's the federal government, whether it's. It's some type of foundation, because you have to pay clinicians to support the criminal legal defendants, to help them get social services. You need to clear a calendar in a local treatment, in a local courthouse, things like that. And so I first just studied this court nearby me. But I said, you know, there's hundreds of these being created around the country. And the court I'm studying seems to have features that are very local, specific. There seems to be relationships with the local service providers. There seems to be really close relationships with the DA's office. But what does this look like in other settings? Does it look like what I'm seeing here? And so I decided that I wanted to expand my study, and I found two courts in other places, and I chose cities because I was not studying a treatment court in a city. I chose two cities on opposite sides of the country, trying to get a little variation. And I was able to successfully recruit people in those places to do weekly observations for me. And I had the support of the federal government. So at first, I had support from my university to help me recruit People to help work with me. And then the federal government granted me what's called a career award, which really enabled me to expand the study and conduct it for five years. And so for about a year and a half, in each courtroom, I had weekly observers take notes on everything that was said and describe everything they saw, try to get as much information about the defendants as they could access. And then I would go to those sites a couple times a year, and I would interview all of the players that would talk to me, the public defenders, the DA or the probation officer, the judges. When they told me who had been the champion who created the court, I would go find that person and interview them. So I interviewed around 50 people or so, a little more than that. I interviewed many of them multiple times, and I have just hundreds of hours of observations. In addition, I was able to access a local residential facility that houses veterans that are struggling with substance use and housing. And I observed sessions where veterans talked about their struggles to give me a sense of, who are the veterans that are in these court houses? What are their life experiences? A social service provider working in that residential facility liked my work and invited me to join him at a local jail not affiliated with the court. But I was went for multiple visits to a jail, and I interviewed incarcerated veterans as well. And so I really tried to get as much information as I could about the veterans that find themselves in these courtrooms. And then I did a lot of secondary research on the history of the va, the history of these courts as they emerged in federal lawmaking, and the funding for them. And then, in addition, I was able to attend three national conferences on drug courts, where thousands of people from across the country come to learn about best practices. And there's a separate track just for people trying to implement veterans treatment courts. And so there I was able to see the latest research and really the justifications for these courts, the role of the VA in helping create them. And with all of that information, I had to tease out a story that I then decided to tell in this book.
- [06:59]
B
There's the perfect segue. So. So tell us the story. What's the story? What should we know?
- [07:04]
C
So the story is that when people talk about these courts, they talk about veterans as a specific population that has needs based on their service, and they talk about the courts as uniquely able to serve that population based on their specialized knowledge. Well, the reality is much more complicated when you talk to people who work in these courts and you ask them, as I did, what is different about this population than the other criminal Legal defendants that are not in veterans treatment courts that never went into military, they struggle to say what's really different about them besides that they're more respectful and that they, as people in the criminal legal system, like working with those defendants. There was something that I call effective about their feelings about veterans. There was also something really interesting that I noted that these, the veterans, especially the ones that were service connected, could access the VA and get services from the VA in a way that criminal legal defendants that are not VA connected can't. And so there's something about the availability of resources that also helps create these courts because they don't require as much investment from the public sector because the VA is already there providing services. And then the story about whether the military is causing their criminal legal behavior was really much more complicated than this story that there's something criminogenic about joining the military. In fact, people who want to support veterans want to say there is nothing criminogenic about joining the military. That means that joining the military leads to criminal behavior. They wanted to say that's not true. And yet they were kind of saying that these people, but for joining the military, wouldn't be in the criminal legal system and therefore we should give them this special treatment. So all of these contradictions I found really interesting. And I realized that it's really not about the idea that veterans deserve this. Like, there's a thank you for your service because the military caused this. We're going to give you this special criminal legal benefit. There was really a belief about the quality of the individuals who choose to join the military military and that they should be treated differently than other criminal legal defendants. And so I argue that that is about worth. It's not about deservingness. It's about the worth of people who join the military and then find themselves in the criminal legal system. And that that logic is animating the creation of these courts. But it's not just the creation of the courts. Right? That's what I call the ideological foundation of the courts. These courts also exist because that belief about the worth of military service has already manifested biggest bureaucracy that provides the best social services to Americans in the country, which is the va. And so I call that the material foundations of these courts. You cannot understand the creation of the VTC without understanding the Veterans Administration and the incredible resources that veterans receive.
- [09:51]
B
So one of the things that you point to when you try to identify the differences among these three courts that you studied is in fact that question of resources. So maybe talk to us a little Bit about the differences that you found among those courts and how you account for them.
- [10:09]
C
Great. So the first half of the book really talks about that national story, which is what I'm explaining in terms of the material and ideological foundations for just the creation of VTCs in general. But then, because I'm really interested in how things play out on the ground, I looked at these three different courts and they were completely different. Not only did they have different ways of operating, my findings were that they had different understandings of what they were supposed to be doing. Right. So one court was really focused on keeping people sober in the way that a traditional drug court would. Another court was really focused on providing as many social services as possible and keeping people alive. I call that court the triage court. And then another court was really trying to create community and create meaning and give the people in that courtroom a sense that they were part of a community, which I call the model court. That's sort of the story people tell about veterans treatment courts. Now, what explains these differences? In part, it's locale. And I talk a little bit about the different places that these courts are and their demographics, but I say you can't explain it away with locale. There's too much dissonance between what one might expect given the population. But there were actual choices that the courts made when they were established, and the most important choices that they made were who's allowed in, specifically, what crimes were they having to be accused of. Is this a court? That's what we call post disposition, meaning the person has pled and might be facing jail if they don't comply with the court, or is it pre plea? Is it they've been arrested and if they're told if they can comply with what the court requires, they won't actually face charges, their charges could be dropped. And so there's these choices about where in the criminal legal process you put this intervention. But there's also a choice about whether you require people to have access to the va. If you allow in people that don't have access to the va, well, now you need to figure out other ways to provide them with social services, and that's a big difference. And if you are in a place that has a residential facility, well, most of the people that are in these courts need a place to live. A lot of them are struggling with homelessness, especially if they're trying to get sober. And so the quality of those residential facilities is really important in whether or not a person in that court is going to succeed in it. And graduate, which basically means they were able to stay sober and do what the court asked them to do. And so there's resources, there's locale. But the third really important piece was foundings. Who were the people that decided to create the courts? What resources did they gather? How much support were they able to get from the different players needed, the DA's office, the probation officer, depending on whether, whether it's pre plea or post disposition, and whether they really had access to the VA in a good cohesive way, whether the VA in that community was on board from the beginning, because one of my courts actually had to shut down because the judge did not establish really good relationships with the VA and was mandating that the participants get treatments the VA didn't offer. And when the funder that had given this court money, which was the federal government, came and said, your court is not working, and we're not going to allow you to accept any new people until you figure out how to do this. Right. Right. That was a, A, a moment where you realized the foundings of these courts, the way you set them up, are extremely important.
- [13:25]
B
Can you talk to us a little bit about. And recognizing there's, there's wide variation in experience here, but maybe tell us some of the stories of veterans themselves and how they experience the courts and how, how they, how they think about them and how they feel about them.
- [13:39]
C
Great. So I did a lot of, I did some interviews in one court with veterans and the other two courts in order to get access to observe the courts and interview everybody. I actually said I to study individually the veterans. And so what I did was I observed them in the courtrooms and watched the way they interacted. And so I learned a lot about the veterans by watching how they interacted with the judges and how they talked about their experiences. And so I would say that a fair amount of the participants in the court, especially in the one that I call the model court, almost all of them would come to the court after a few months and say, this has changed my life. You all are wonderful. And one of the reasons that they said, you're all wonderful is that that model court had what's called peer mentors. They had a dedicated group of veterans, mainly from the Vietnam era, that were retired, that were devoting hours to each of these individual veterans. And that meant that they were getting rides to their appointments, they were getting individual attention, and it really made them feel like somebody cares about them. And so that is the common narrative. That's the story people want from these courts. In the court that I refer to as her, which is the one that had to shut down because it didn't have. The setup, was not adequate, according to the funder, people would walk into that court and really express frustration. That was the dominant feeling. And so a person would come in and basically complain to the judge about what type of punishment they were getting. They saw this as punishment, and the judge would consistently say, it's not punishment. We're here to support you. And they would say things like, I have a GPS on me. I have. You're monitoring my movements. I can't live my life. I'm really angry or frustrated. And they were frustrated. That was the sort of dominant feeling. And in the other court that I call triage, those people that were in that court, half of them were not va connected. And the court was in a place that has a severe homelessness and drug substance use problem. And so many of the people in that court had been living on the streets for years, if not decades. And when they would come into court, they were not fully coherent, many of them, and they were basically talking about their lives in a way that made you realize these are people who have serious substance use and mental health disorders. And they're basically asking. They're not really even asking the court for anything. They've lost hope in the system, and the court is begging them to, you know, give it a try, try to do something for themselves. And so those were sort of the dominant narratives that were coming out of each courtroom. Of course, each individual veteran had a different story. And sometimes you would hear veterans talk about how joining the service was the most meaningful thing for them, and they loved it, and it was really sad when they had to leave and others would say they didn't want to talk about their service at all because the whole experience had been really unpleasant for them. And so one of the things I say about these courts that's really interesting is I went in looking for people to be talking about their military experience, and they almost never did. Almost never. Right. I have about 20 examples out of a year and a half in each court of people actually talking about their own military experience wasn't what this court was about.
- [16:55]
B
Which, I mean, one of the many things that I found absolutely fascinating about the book is that you would expect. Right. That. That would be. Right. Sort of a central part of the narrative, perhaps on everyone's part, and the. The fact that it. It just sort of fades away. Right. Which. Right.
- [17:10]
C
I mean, I really walked into the first time I started observing these courts. I said, what is different about this and a drug court? And that was sort of one of my comparative questions as I. As I went through this study. And again, what is different about this in a drug court? I think access to the social services that the veterans have and the assumptions that the people working in these courts make about the veterans, which is that at some point in their life, they had maybe stable employment if they had actually succeeded in the military and, you know, weren't kicked out in boot camp as many people in the courts as some of the people in the courts were. But it was really the assumptions about the veterans that made them different, not anything in the courtroom in terms of how people talked about military service and their structure, struggle.
- [17:54]
B
So throughout the book, you talk a lot in any number of different ways about sort of the construction of ideas about these people and their service and deservingness and worth. And talk to us a little bit about what you walk away with in terms of thinking both about what that means in the operation of that particular system and maybe what it might mean if we think about providing better services to other populations in other parts of the welfare state, state.
- [18:25]
C
I think the best starting point to that question is the concept of trauma. So the word trauma is really common in these courts. And many of the people I spoke to that were supportive of these courts would say that there's something about the trauma that comes with military service that resonates with policymakers across the political spectrum. And so it's easy for veterans treatment courts to get bipartisan support. Not always. I mean, that's a part of my findings that were really interesting that in one of the cities that I studied, the local municipality said, why are we giving veterans a get out of jail free card? And then they changed their tune when they realized that that was actually politically popular and that they would say it's not a get out of jail free card. You still have to do a lot of work. But the idea of veterans trauma, I think, resonates with people, and there's some good work on why. And there's a racial component to that. There's a really good scholar named Darda who talks about how veterans, especially in the wake of the Vietnam War, as the ideas of trauma were taking hold, really racialized themselves as white, and that was able to help them get the kind of attention that they needed to get resources from policymakers and actually denied the existence of many black and other people of color who had joined the military and suffered some really terrible, terrible ills due to racism, both in the military and then after. But the other thing about trauma is that other scholars have pointed out out is that there's something called urban survival syndrome, or the way of thinking about the trauma of growing up in a place that is surrounded by violence. And so one of my interviewees said, you know, many of the people in the criminal legal system that I defend that are not veterans have heard gunshots their whole lives. They've heard gunshots all night long. And I think those people have similar trauma. But I can't seem to get people who want tough on crime policies to see that trauma in the same way. We're not even supposed to use the word trauma. And so that particular individual, a public defender who is a little skeptical of treatment courts because he worries about due process rights in treatment courts, said, I really actually am behind the veterans treatment courts because I think this is a way to get the idea of trauma into the criminal legal system. And it's a way to sympathize with veterans and give them resources and think about their criminal offenses in a much more structural way. But I'm hoping that that gets in the minds of the public and, and of other people who have more tough on crime mindsets that in fact, trauma explains a lot of criminal legal behavior. And maybe we should be thinking about the kinds of resources that other people who are accused of crimes could use as well.
- [21:15]
B
Imagine the best of the courts that you studied. Do you think it's scalable? You think that it's realistic? Think about using this as a model more broadly into, as you point out, those populations that do not right the benefit from the almost reflexive respect that veterans are given.
- [21:35]
C
I was so impressed with the court that was functional. And I still believe that it's because of their incredible access to a residential facility for people to be in a safe community with all sorts of resources. And it's the residential facility that made the difference. I think that's scalable. The biggest challenges in the other courts were people who were really struggling to stay sober. And it was housing. It was all about housing. And so I don't see why, if there's a solid investment in residential treatment facilities for people, that other courts couldn't have similar successes. Of course, there were other features of this court in terms of the cohesive work group, a really effective judge, very little turnover in the people who were working in that courtroom. But by and large, most people agree when I ask them, do you think it was the residential facility? And they're like, we could not do it without that. The One other thing that that court had that was so good also was that dedicated group of peer mentors. And it's unclear what comes first, a functional court and a dedicated group of peer mentors. In the other courts, it was hard to keep the mentors as engaged. The mentors didn't themselves form that kind of community. And that might be because of the urban setting versus the more rural setting where those peer mentors were successful. But I still think that there's ways that you could scale.
- [22:59]
B
You're listening to the Public Policy Channel of the New Books Network, and we have been speaking with Jamie Rowan about her new book, worthy of justice, the Politics of Veterans Treatment Courts in Practice from Stanford University Press. Jamie, thank you so much.
- [23:12]
C
Thank you, Stephen.