Ethical Issues in Veterans Treatment Courts

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

Setting the scene, Brooke and Baldwin present the first critical analysis of the VTC concept, specifically addressing their assumptions, policies and practice, relationship between dissemination and research, and larger impact on society’s perceptions. The subsequent presentations further examine these issues. Sherman explores an additional tension within the VTC that arises from the co-existence of procedural justice, the court’s non-adversarial nature, and its rehabilitation-based context. Further, she determines this impact on both the VTCs themselves and their participants using observational and interview data. Following this, Baldwin and Kienzle narrow the focus specifically to the voluntariness and knowledge of VTC participants. Using self-report data, this study evaluates levels of participants' knowledge of these programs and their voluntariness in becoming actual participants in VTCs, as well as the relationship between these two variables and others. Finally, in response to the dissemination of these courts without supportive research that was initially argued in the first presentation, Hartley addresses the need for high-quality scientific research evaluations of these courts to be conducted in the future. While the studies in this panel are steps forward in this movement, goals for this course of research need to be determined to aide in further progress.

Sub Unit

• Area VII: Criminal Justice Policy and Practice / 39: Courts and Juries

Individual Presentations

• For the Greater? A Critical Examination of the Veterans Treatment Court Concept - Erika Jean Brooke, University of Florida; Julie Marie Baldwin, Missouri State University

• The Fair Fight: Contextualizing Procedural Justice in a Veterans Treatment Court - Nicole Sherman, University of California, Irvine

• All Volunteer, Naïve, or Coerced Enlistment? An Analysis of Participation Voluntariness and Program Knowledge in Veterans Treatment Courts - Julie Marie Baldwin, Missouri State University; Megan Kienzle, The College at Brockport, State University of New York

• Reliability and Validity in Veterans Treatment Court Evaluations - Richard Hartley, University of Texas at San Antonio

Chair

• Julie Marie Baldwin, Missouri State University