So I have a Letter to the Editor published on Saturday in the Press Democrat... It said: EDITOR: A veteran’s sacrifice means America owes him or her compassionate treatment at home. Many return with enough lethal images and post-traumatic stress disorder to destroy the normal life they hoped to live; some end up in jail because of drug addiction. Right now, more than 10 percent of the inmates in the Sonoma County jail are veterans, locked up primarily for drug possession. I believe that Sonoma County and the Board of Supervisors have a responsibility to support our troops by creating a veterans court, as in Solano, San Francisco, Alameda, Marin and Orange counties. Why does Sonoma County prefer to lock veterans up instead of offering them treatment programs when incarceration costs $60,000-plus per year and the Department of Veterans Affairs offers money to support veterans’ programs? Are we really that beholden to the prison guard unions? Setting up a veterans court is the first step to stopping mandatory detention of our veterans by meeting their needs for justice, by providing access to treatment programs that address their pain. It’s time that our brave soldiers stop being prisoners of war in Sonoma County’s jail. Incarceration breeds PTSD. Bring our troops home from America’s jails. KYM TRIPPSMITH Sebastopol pressdemocrat/opinion/3062370-181/saturdays-letters-to-the-editor?page=3
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 20:04:46 +0000
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