ANOKA, Minn. – (Oct. 27, 2016) – In Anoka County, some veterans facing criminal charges are given the option of entering Veterans Treatment Court, instead of a traditional courtroom.
“The whole idea is to keep them out of jail and give them more a supportive atmosphere for being and staying sober,” said Tenth Judicial District Judge Jenny Walker Jasper.
Benefits-eligible veterans who are interested in changing their lives can commit to spending 18-24 months having regular visits with a judge while on probation.
During their time in court, they work on addressing the problems that led to the crime, whether it be substance abuse, homelessness, mental health or something else.
“What we are finding is their is a high correlation between the problems these veterans are facing and a lack of sobriety,” said Palumbo.
Anoka County received $300,000 from the Department of Justice to expand the veteran’s court to even more participants.
“When I see the same person every two weeks in vets court I can say to them wow you look really good this week or last time you were going to take a drivers license test, how did that go? They buy in more because they feel that me as a judge and everybody in vets court supporting them also buys in, everyone wants to support them,” said Jasper.
After completing the program, the veterans graduate, and are given a special coin in honor of their achievement and their future.
“We want them to graduate. We have graduated 22 people in the last four years. We’ve had a couple of failures. Their are some people for whatever reason didn’t want to straighten their life out in the way we felt they should have, so at that point we removed them from veterans court,” said Palumbo.
The county is also launching a new drug court, thanks to another $350,000 grant from the department of justice. The grant money will allow the county to hire staff to operate the court.
“Drug court will focus on individual needs of people. We like to think we will focus on those that are committing other crimes because of their drug use. It’s not just that they have a drug problem, their are lots of people in the criminal justice system, but we are trying to focus on sending the people that are committing other crimes, burglary, thefts, domestic violence,” said Palumbo.
Similar in ways to the veterans court, the volunteers who enter drug court will be required to stay sober and work on solving the problems that led them down the wrong path.
“I really believe we can make a difference if we sort out some of the issues that are causing people to commit the number of crimes that we see,” said Palumbo.
But, beyond simply reducing the crime rate, they are also hoping to make a real difference in the lives of the offenders and their families.
“Hopefully we will reduce the impact entirely not only on our criminal justice system but certainly their are children that are involved here so you have an impact on families. You certainly have an impact on child protection people, our probation officers, our law enforcement, so if you can reduce the incidents of crime, reduce the incidents of people behaving in such a way that it causes harm to others, we all benefit,” said Palumbo.
