Wisconsin National Guard officials continue to press law enforcement authorities to try alternative approaches when confronted with military veterans suspected of criminal offenses.
Veterans may not deserve leniency because of their service, said Joe Adamson, who in 2009 became the state Guard's first liaison with police agencies.
But police and prosecutors can obtain better results by connecting an offender to some of the myriad programs available to veterans with substance abuse or other mental health problems, Adamson said.
"It's really challenging to go from a highly structured organization where every minute of your life is accounted for, and come back to a lack of structure, a lack of regimentation," Adamson said. "You see them doing risk-taking behaviors, seeking excitement and adrenalin."
Adamson, who is Horicon's police chief, has left the National Guard provost marshal post for a position with the Army Reserve, but he continues to join Guard officials in meetings with the justice system to suggest ways to de-escalate crisis situations with troubled veterans.
Sometimes dispatching an officer with military experience helps, Adamson said.
Some veterans return from deployments in countries where alcohol is banned and become extremely inebriated because they have lower resistance to the drug, he said.
In 2010, the state Guard told members to be careful after finding that nearly as many of them had died in violent or accidental deaths back home that year as were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Seven state Guard members died in four traffic crashes, two shootings and one drowning, compared with nine deaths in Iraq, and one in Afghanistan, officials said.
Rock County formed the state's first veterans diversion program in 2009, and eight others have been created in Wisconsin since then.
Dane, Rock, Green and Lafayette counties have referred 33 veterans who may be eligible for mental health or substance abuse treatment, said Ed Zapala, a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs coordinator for the Rock County effort.
Veterans hospitals and clinics offer inpatient psychiatric services, residential and outpatient drug and alcohol treatment as well as medication management and counseling, Zapala said.
Copyright 2014 - The Wisconsin State Journal
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
