Jack Tsai - Intersections between Mental Health and Law among Veterans

Editors

Jack Tsai and Evan R. Seamone

Intersections between Mental Health and Law among Veterans

Editors

Jack Tsai

Veterans Affairs National Center on Homelessness Among Veterans, Tampa, FL, USA

Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA

Evan R. Seamone

Veterans Benefits Attorney, Loxley Services, and Major U.S. Army Reserve, Gainesville, FL, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-31663-1 e-ISBN 978-3-030-31664-8

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31664-8

Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

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Acknowledgments

Freedom, justice, and health are difficult but fundamental components of a thriving society. We must be careful in maintaining a balance among these components. We are privileged to live in a free and wealthy United States because of those who have come before us and their dedication to founding principles. This book is dedicated to the men and women who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces, their loved ones, and those who have served them.

Jack Tsai

Contents

Jack Tsai

Daniel M. Blonigen , Christopher M. King and Christine Timko

Sean Clark and Bessie Flatley

Krista Selnau and Rose Carmen Goldberg

Janice D. McCall and Benjamin Pomerance

Janice M. Rosa

Elizabeth Goggin and Michele Roberts

Evan R. Seamone

Shoba Sreenivasan , Stephanie Brooks Holliday , Allen Azizian and James McGuire

Elspeth Cameron Ritchie

What wounded veterans dont need is sympathy. They need to be treated like the men [and women] they are: equals, heroes, and people who still have tremendous value for society.

Chris Kyle

Throughout human history , military forces have been essential to the preservation, protection, and operations of societies. In modern time, the United States military consists of five branches, including the Army, Air Force, and Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, each with different functions. Collectively, these military branches serve to ensure the security of the country; in turn, the country and its citizens have taken on the responsibility of creating systems of care to serve the healthcare needs of military personnel after their service and to help them transition back to civilian life. For that purpose, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was created and is now the second largest federal department in the U.S. The VA consists of three entities: the Veterans Health Administration , the Veterans Benefit Administration , and the National Cemetery Administration . As part of the Veterans Health Administration , there are currently over 130 VA medical centers and over 1000 community-based outpatient clinics throughout the country. Although oft overlooked, the VA regularly serves veterans who are involved in the criminal justice system and/or who have civil legal problems . The VA can and does treat convicted felons and even sex offenders at their facilities since VA healthcare eligibility and compensation after military discharge is not a basis for denial of service. In addition to VA resources, there are countless regional and national veterans service organizations, and other privately and publicly funded institutions serving veterans and their healthcare needs.

Major advances in science and medicine in the past few decades have led to substantial progress in improving veterans health and well-being. For example, considerable progress has been made in addressing various medical and psychosocial problems that have plagued the veteran population , such as combat injuries (Sigford, ). When these reactions do occur, they often place veterans in conflict with the law.

There has been a continual gradual shift in our understanding and approach to health care. The current leading causes of mortality in the U.S., like heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and suicide, are known to be closely related to lifestyle, diet, stress management, and other psychosocial factors (Danaei et al., ). This movement has been transmitted to approaches to addressing criminal justice problems and the high rates of mental illness and substance use disorders among those involved in the criminal justice system.

This book will focus on various important ways in which mental health and law intersect. The U.S. justice system is complex but can be separated into criminal and civil law . As already alluded to, there are many ways in which mental health and criminal law intersect but there are also ways in which mental health intersects with civil law. The circumstances of modern wars have at times transformed attorneys, judges, corrections professionals, and others into first-responders for untreated, invisible war wounds (Seamone, ). In this book, we try to delve into several important ways these intersections affect veterans, healthcare, and society at large.

This book is intended for a broad audience of academics, policymakers, program administrators, clinicians, researchers, and students who are interested in programs, services, and research on veterans with mental health problems involved in legal systems . The purpose of the book is to provide a comprehensive overview of these issues and highlight the innovative work in this area. The book contains a series of chapters that showcase and delve into the burgeoning areas in which mental health and law intersect. We focus on the U.S. veteran population given wide public support for their well-being and the range of mental health and social problems they encounter after their service. Since the intersection between mental health and law is a relatively nascent area, many of the chapters of the book also describe where the gaps in knowledge currently lay.