From War to Prison: Examining the Relationship Between Military Service and Criminal Activity

Military Service and Lifetime Arrests: Examining the Effects of the Total Military Experience on Arrests in a Sample of Prison Inmates

“…Traditionally, researchers and practitioners have focused reintegration efforts primarily at combat veterans (Card, 1983;Culp et al, 2013;Yager et al, 1984) under the assumption that those who experience war are the most likely to suffer negative outcomes such as substance abuse, mental health problems, and criminal behavior. The results of the present study suggest that a narrow focus on combat might be unwise.…”

Worthy of Justice: A Veterans Treatment Court in Practice

“…It is well known that the military recruits in lower‐income communities and communities of color where there may be fewer opportunities for social mobility (Lutz ; Kentor, Jorgenson, and Kick ). Many return to their communities after their service, and their social integration is one of the most important predictors of whether they will engage in criminal behavior (Musheno and Ross ; Culp et al ). VTCs such as this one may honor the value of military service.…”

“…First, and most obviously, why are other vulnerable groups, particularly racial minorities who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, not treated with similar concern about what pushes them into the criminal justice system? This query is not meant to undervalue the sacrifice of those who choose to enlist, but rather to point out that many of the individuals who do choose to enlist have life histories similar to those who do not and that the same factors that predict criminal offending in the nonveteran population predict offending in the veteran population (see Culp et al ). Trauma, substance misuse, and mental health challenges often predate service, and there is nothing distinctly criminogenic about having joined the military.…”

“…Notably, many of the veterans in the criminal justice system did not experience combat, the majority of participants in VTCs do not suffer from PTSD, and many have come to VTCs after many years of substance abuse and criminal activity (Flatley et al ; Tsai et al 2017). Additionally, veterans' past and/or current substance use and mental health challenges—which closely correlate with criminal behavior in the veteran population—often stem from experiences that predate and/or are not directly related to their service (Culp et al ; Tsai and Rosenheck ).…”

Institutional Castling: Military Enlistment and Mass Incarceration in the United States

“…Respondents include those being held pretrial, those serving local sentences, and those awaiting transfer into the custody of another correctional facility. The survey was fielded in 1972, 1978, 1983, 1989, 1996, and 2002. Although prior research on veteran incarceration has excluded inmates in local custody when investigating diferences between veterans and nonveterans (Culp et al 2013;Greenberg and Rosenheck 2007), including data on inmates in local jails has increased in importance, as extended periods of pretrial detention, prison overcrowding, and other policy shifts (such as AB109 in California) increasingly mean that inmates will spend at least a fraction of their sentenced time in local and county jails (Turney and Connor 2019).…”