Rescuing Soldiers of Misfortune

This unique book concerns those veteran inmates who have failed to complete a readjustment process and who continue to wage their own personal wars to regain a sense of normalcy – those veterans who have not yet redeployed home from combat even though they have relocated to the inherently traumatizing confinement setting. Aside from identifying factors that will help those seeking to be aware of the unique problems of incarcerated veterans and those advocating for them, the book attempts to help these individuals as well as correctional professionals understand veteran inmates and their “unique” needs, which stem from military service. The text offers that programs must be implemented flexibly despite operational and budgetary challenges. The book clearly provides guidelines to develop relevant programs that do far more than simply warehouse troublesome individuals. Major topics include: components of veterans’ readjustment; military discipline and military discharge; the relationship between military service and crime; criminal manifestations of military service, war zone deployment, and combat trauma; veterans’ benefits and outreach during incarceration; popular approaches to divert veterans from confinement; attributes of veterans’ groups in confined settings; institutionally-based programs for veterans; veterans’ dorms; and urgency in the preparation for the coming “storm” of veteran offenders. This book, which represents years of research and the author’s experience as a military lawyer in both prosecution and defense, is an important reference for a variety of readers, including law enforcement and first responders, corrections professionals, mental health providers, lawyers, judges, and anyone who desires to understand the challenges faced by military veterans in conflict with the law.

Seamone engrains this practice-oriented volume with historical and empirical lessons from those jurisdictions that previously implemented veteran-specific programming...More specifically, this volume "spans the post-World War I period to the present to show programs that promote successful readjustment from military service and treatment of combat and operational stress injuries during confinement." Refraining from "single blueprints" for all veterans or for all settings, Seamone addresses objections to veteran-specific interventions as well as critical issues...in the implementation of these initiatives...Seamone identifies basic themes for the development of jail- and prison-based veteran programming, namely those that promote successful readjustment after deployment, address combat-related trauma and post-traumatic stress, prepare veterans for reentry into community life, instill discipline or Esprit de Corps, and reward past service. In making this a practical guide to such programming, Seamone describes historical and contemporary programs from across the country, reprints program and policy documents related to these initiatives, and provides a detailed bibliography of relevant literature, including his own past writings. --Russ Immarigeon / Corrections Managers' Report / Volume XXIV, No. 6, April/May 2019

For any correctional professional who works with veterans, supervises a veterans court or has a veterans unit or program within a correctional institution, Professor Evan Seamone's book is one you need to have on your bookshelf. It is a most comprehensive discussion of the many issues veterans bring back from service and combat to the criminal justice system... While Seamone's book is much more a research document than a book, it is...a document each and every institution housing veterans should have available. Not only just a research guide and information source, this book also provides a sense of what has been done, what is being done and what can be done to assist those in the criminal justice system who have been arrested, confined and ultimately returned to the community. --Art Beeler / Corrections Today / May/June 2019