The VA enacted a regulation in 1999 that formally excluded incarcerated veterans from receiving VA medical care, significantly impacting those who relied on VA services for serious conditions like PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury. 4th Appellate District, Division 3 Eileen C. Moore
Associate Justice, California Courts of Appeal Shutterstock Evan Seamone, PhD, a former major in the Army, served as a legal and policy advisor to the national Veterans Justice Commission until his death on July 25, 2023. When he died, he was just completing a project researching why the Department of Veterans Affairs, VA, does not provide much-needed medical and psychological care to incarcerated veterans.
Essentially, ignoring decades of history where health care was provided to veterans behind bars, the VA enacted a regulation prohibiting VA medical care for veterans in jails and prisons in 1999. And it did so in an arguably devious way.
This article will look at what Dr. Seamone found. The full report can be found at: " Healing on the inside: A history of healthcare for incarcerated veterans ." Council on Criminal Justice. https://counciloncj.org/healing-on-the-inside-a-history-of-healthcare-for-incarcerated-veterans/
After World War I
As early as 1922, newspaper editorial boards wrote that veterans suffering from shell shock [what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD] were often not in a position to tell right from wrong. In 1923, a survey in Wisconsin indicated that more than one fifth of its incarcerated veterans "were made criminals by their war service." A New York survey found that every one of its 48 incarcerated veterans was suffering from shell shock.
The first director of the Veterans Bureau [what was later called the Veterans Administration and is now called the Department of Veterans Affairs or VA], Col. Charles Forbes, wrote: "Where we find beneficiaries in penitentiaries and jails, you must remember that there is nothing in the law to prevent them from having care, treatment and compensation." The second director oversaw pilot programs where VA physicians would be allowed to visit jailed veterans to consider the possibility of placing them in government hospitals.
After World War II
In 1948, Col. John N. Andrews, […]
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