Post by ron on Jan 9, 2015 9:29:20 GMT -6
Newsletter
For
Incarcerated Veterans
Veterans can sometimes run into issues with law enforcement and the criminal justice system resulting in incarceration. It is important justice-involved Veterans are familiar with VA benefits including what VA benefits they may still eligible to receive, what happens to the VA benefits they are already receiving if they become incarcerated, and what programs are available to assist them with reintegrating back into the community once released from incarceration.
VA Programs for Justice-Involved Veterans
Health Care for Re-entry Veterans (HCRV) Program
The HCRV Program is designed to help incarcerated Veterans successfully reintegrate back into the community after their release. A critical part of HCRV is providing information to Veterans while they are incarcerated, so they can plan for re-entry themselves. A primary goal of the HCRV program is to prevent Veterans from becoming homeless once they are reintegrated back into the community.
What is the Incarcerated Veterans Transition Program?
The Incarcerated Veterans Transition Program (IV-TP), managed by the U.S. Department of
Labor, Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS), is designed to help ex-offender
veterans who are at risk of homelessness to reenter the workforce. The program provides
direct services – through a case management approach – to link incarcerated veterans with
appropriate employment and life skills suppo t as they transition from a correctional facility
into the community. The primary objectives of IV-TP are:
• To provide services to assist in reintegrating incarcerated veterans into meaningful employment within the labor force; and
• To stimulate the development of
effective service delivery systems that
will address the complex problems
facing ex-offender veterans.
Corrections and tax reform top Oklahoma legislative agenda
Corrections reforms and an examination of some tax credits are front and center on the agenda when the Oklahoma Legislature reconvenes in February. In recent interviews, House Speaker Jeff Hickman and fellow Republican Rep. Earl Sears, R-Bartlesville, tOklahoma’s growing population of inmates is overflowing state prison space and leading to larger budget requests from the state Corrections Department.Hickman, of Dacoma, saida shortage of prison guards and a growing inmate population is a recipe for disaster.
A Great Letter to the Editor that the Oklahoman did run.
Published by OK Cure
Regarding “Some question Oklahoma Corrections Department use of early-release credits” (Oklahoma Watch, Dec. 14): This is the most backward and ridiculous policy change imaginable. First, an inmate with a history of disregard, disrespect and violence inside prison is certainly no candidate for society’s rules and behavior expectations outside those walls. He’s endangering society further with this approach.
Also of concern is the death blow this change has dealt to morale inside the correctional facilities.
Thousands of nonviolent offenders exist in the system with no need for restored credits for misconducts. My fiance has 12 years without a single misconduct. He and others watch with incredulity as inmates with horrible histories of misconduct are given their credits back and fast-tracked to freedom. It defies logic. The state releases them while aging, nonviolent, well-behaved inmates remain incarcerated!
Corrections Director Robert Patton is misguided in his decisions for dealing with the 110 percent overcrowding and the jail backups. Someone needs to stop him and find a way to do it right. Let the parole board do its job, and let the commutation appeals from these decent men and women who’ve done amazing amounts of time just be heard. Release those deserving of release!
Susan Denis, Tucson, Ariz.
Author: America’s morally adrift prison policies
Published by OK Cure
Reacting to a sharp rise in violent crimes, state and federal officials in the 1970s climbed aboard the politically popular “tough on crime” bandwagon. By 2012, with only 5 percent of the world’s population but nearly 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, the United States became the world’s incarceration capital. Federal, state and local inmates topped 2.2 million — nearly seven times the number in 1972. A recent report from the National Research Council, the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences, is perhaps the most exhaustive attempt yet — 444 pages — to explain America’s prison boom. The report concludes, “The best single proximate explanation of the rise in incarceration is not rising crime, but the policy choices made by legislators to greatly increase the use of imprisonment as a response to crime.”
Fairness. Punishments are deserved and just only when they fit the seriousness of the crime. But, the council reports, adoption of mandatory-minimum sentences, three-strike laws and other measures that readily imposed prison time “often disconnected the severity of punishments from the seriousness of crimes. Low-level drug crimes often were punished as severely as serious acts of violence.”
Citizenship. Prison terms should not violate an individual’s fundamental status a member of society. Ex-convicts are unduly penalized when their voting rights, access to credit and jobs, housing assistance, education aid and other social benefits are cut off.
The Vietnam Veterans Association – Veterans Incarcerated Committee
To support VVA's philosophy and principles on a wide range of issues, the VVA Constitution establishes a number of key standing committees. The Veterans Incarcerated Committee function and purpose is described therein as follows:
"The Veterans Incarcerated Committee shall develop programs of awareness with regard to the special needs of veterans who are presently or formerly incarcerated. The Committee shall act as liaison with the State Councils and Chapter Veterans Incarcerated Committees, and with members of VVA who are incarcerated."
The VVA Strategic Plan, approved by the VVA Board of Directors in 1996, further defines the Committee's functions, and this is detailed in the Committee's mission statement and work plan.
Mission Statement:
Provide benefits and services not currently being provided to veterans incarcerated by researching Department of Corrections Regulations for each state which might enable us to implement new programs for veterans and by building cooperation at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Awareness Subcommittee -- Increase the sensitivity of our membership to the issues which affect veterans incarcerated; publicize, through the print media and public appearances, the various successful programs for veterans incarcerated which can be established by each state in their institutions.
For
Incarcerated Veterans
Veterans can sometimes run into issues with law enforcement and the criminal justice system resulting in incarceration. It is important justice-involved Veterans are familiar with VA benefits including what VA benefits they may still eligible to receive, what happens to the VA benefits they are already receiving if they become incarcerated, and what programs are available to assist them with reintegrating back into the community once released from incarceration.
VA Programs for Justice-Involved Veterans
Health Care for Re-entry Veterans (HCRV) Program
The HCRV Program is designed to help incarcerated Veterans successfully reintegrate back into the community after their release. A critical part of HCRV is providing information to Veterans while they are incarcerated, so they can plan for re-entry themselves. A primary goal of the HCRV program is to prevent Veterans from becoming homeless once they are reintegrated back into the community.
What is the Incarcerated Veterans Transition Program?
The Incarcerated Veterans Transition Program (IV-TP), managed by the U.S. Department of
Labor, Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS), is designed to help ex-offender
veterans who are at risk of homelessness to reenter the workforce. The program provides
direct services – through a case management approach – to link incarcerated veterans with
appropriate employment and life skills suppo t as they transition from a correctional facility
into the community. The primary objectives of IV-TP are:
• To provide services to assist in reintegrating incarcerated veterans into meaningful employment within the labor force; and
• To stimulate the development of
effective service delivery systems that
will address the complex problems
facing ex-offender veterans.
Corrections and tax reform top Oklahoma legislative agenda
Corrections reforms and an examination of some tax credits are front and center on the agenda when the Oklahoma Legislature reconvenes in February. In recent interviews, House Speaker Jeff Hickman and fellow Republican Rep. Earl Sears, R-Bartlesville, tOklahoma’s growing population of inmates is overflowing state prison space and leading to larger budget requests from the state Corrections Department.Hickman, of Dacoma, saida shortage of prison guards and a growing inmate population is a recipe for disaster.
A Great Letter to the Editor that the Oklahoman did run.
Published by OK Cure
Regarding “Some question Oklahoma Corrections Department use of early-release credits” (Oklahoma Watch, Dec. 14): This is the most backward and ridiculous policy change imaginable. First, an inmate with a history of disregard, disrespect and violence inside prison is certainly no candidate for society’s rules and behavior expectations outside those walls. He’s endangering society further with this approach.
Also of concern is the death blow this change has dealt to morale inside the correctional facilities.
Thousands of nonviolent offenders exist in the system with no need for restored credits for misconducts. My fiance has 12 years without a single misconduct. He and others watch with incredulity as inmates with horrible histories of misconduct are given their credits back and fast-tracked to freedom. It defies logic. The state releases them while aging, nonviolent, well-behaved inmates remain incarcerated!
Corrections Director Robert Patton is misguided in his decisions for dealing with the 110 percent overcrowding and the jail backups. Someone needs to stop him and find a way to do it right. Let the parole board do its job, and let the commutation appeals from these decent men and women who’ve done amazing amounts of time just be heard. Release those deserving of release!
Susan Denis, Tucson, Ariz.
Author: America’s morally adrift prison policies
Published by OK Cure
Reacting to a sharp rise in violent crimes, state and federal officials in the 1970s climbed aboard the politically popular “tough on crime” bandwagon. By 2012, with only 5 percent of the world’s population but nearly 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, the United States became the world’s incarceration capital. Federal, state and local inmates topped 2.2 million — nearly seven times the number in 1972. A recent report from the National Research Council, the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences, is perhaps the most exhaustive attempt yet — 444 pages — to explain America’s prison boom. The report concludes, “The best single proximate explanation of the rise in incarceration is not rising crime, but the policy choices made by legislators to greatly increase the use of imprisonment as a response to crime.”
Fairness. Punishments are deserved and just only when they fit the seriousness of the crime. But, the council reports, adoption of mandatory-minimum sentences, three-strike laws and other measures that readily imposed prison time “often disconnected the severity of punishments from the seriousness of crimes. Low-level drug crimes often were punished as severely as serious acts of violence.”
Citizenship. Prison terms should not violate an individual’s fundamental status a member of society. Ex-convicts are unduly penalized when their voting rights, access to credit and jobs, housing assistance, education aid and other social benefits are cut off.
The Vietnam Veterans Association – Veterans Incarcerated Committee
To support VVA's philosophy and principles on a wide range of issues, the VVA Constitution establishes a number of key standing committees. The Veterans Incarcerated Committee function and purpose is described therein as follows:
"The Veterans Incarcerated Committee shall develop programs of awareness with regard to the special needs of veterans who are presently or formerly incarcerated. The Committee shall act as liaison with the State Councils and Chapter Veterans Incarcerated Committees, and with members of VVA who are incarcerated."
The VVA Strategic Plan, approved by the VVA Board of Directors in 1996, further defines the Committee's functions, and this is detailed in the Committee's mission statement and work plan.
Mission Statement:
Provide benefits and services not currently being provided to veterans incarcerated by researching Department of Corrections Regulations for each state which might enable us to implement new programs for veterans and by building cooperation at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Awareness Subcommittee -- Increase the sensitivity of our membership to the issues which affect veterans incarcerated; publicize, through the print media and public appearances, the various successful programs for veterans incarcerated which can be established by each state in their institutions.
