The Fair Fight: Contextualizing Procedural Justice in a Veterans Treatment Court

• In Event: Ethical Issues in Veterans Treatment Courts

Abstract

Recognizing that criminal behavior stems from multiple loci, a unique form of specialty courts called Veterans Treatment Courts (VTCs) utilize a therapeutic approach to simultaneously treat PTSD from combat trauma, substance abuse issues, and criminality. This presentation will outline how a traditional procedural justice framework is complicated by the non-adversarial and rehabilitation-based context of the VTC. After conducting nonparticipant observation at a Southern California VTC for over two years and in-depth interviews with participants of the court, I will show how participants’ belief that they are in the right place, at the right time complicates how important the fairness of rules and sanctions are for compliance. While procedural justice research has shown the value of process over outcome, how does the VTC program invert this trajectory by placing utmost value in the end goal of the process, when the goal is rehabilitation? Furthermore, this presentation will explore how this model of procedural justice and the court context may affect the participants’ decisions to desist. This presentation bridges criminological theory of desistance and socio-legal studies of procedural justice to identify the influential mechanisms that may lead to successful outcomes for offenders who complete the VTC program.

Author

• Nicole Sherman, University of California, Irvine