Re: Demeaning Parole Agent
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tenantweary
I don't suppose there is any bias there then? As there is at least one very public incident of a sheriff who shot a vet who was standing from a prone position on his command.
No more or less so than your "he's my family member who went to war and now should be left alone to drink and drive without the convictions being embarrassing" drivel is. The difference here, though, is that my partner is still dead and your cousin was only embarrassed. The PO did his job without discretion. He should be reprimanded and trained on his IPC skills. But, as I've said, and as the supreme court has said, cops can be jerks and it doesn't violate the constitution.
The occasional embarrassment of one's parole are inherent in being convicted and paroled. I'm sorry that he's found this unpleasant. Perhaps this will be a good incentive for him to remain sober while driving. He could, of course, choose to finish out his term in prison where no coworkers would have to see him be berated by an a-hole PO. Or, he could file a complaint against the PO along with his coworkers.
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Oh, I see. Perfectly fine when they enrolled into service. Shells of their former selves when the get out. Now their obligation is to shut the hell up and leave society alone. Gotcha.
That's a consequence of being involved in the severe trauma of killing people, injuring people, and being shot at. It's not unique to veterans of combat. Police officers have extremely similar problems with which to contend. No one is suggesting anyone shut the hell up about whether veterans get the help they need. That's not the issue here. This is about him breaking a law, apparently as often as he deems fit. The issue isn't confused by yours truly.
A part of getting help, a large part of it, is him asking for help. There are enough people running around trying to get help that the medical profession no longer goes door to door recruiting patients. Moreover, he's a veteran; chances are he can get help for free or nearly so.
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No one on this thread has made that point, the point is should he be continously accused of being a drug/user dealer and gangster. Good attempt at confusing the issue.
The point is attendant to his repeated violations of the law. This says, literally, that he feels free to violate said law whenever the mood hits him.
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Lets see... Richard Riordan, former mayor of LA, 3 dui's, is he a gangster, drug dealer? George Bush? Dick Cheney? Lee Baca tried to bribe Sherman Block from running against him... I wonder if there isn't a double standard somewhere?
Confusing the issues? Bush wasn't four times convicted of anything. As far as we know as a matter of public record, he wasn't convicted of anything. Or do you know where these supposed police reports can be found? I've never heard that Cheney or Bush is a drug dealer. I know of no better armed, trained and funded gang than the U.S. Gov't. It's good business to have a strong gang capable of undertaking extreme measures of violence against those who would do us harm.
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I see your points, one person here has had personal experience with billigerent drunks, another with a psychotic vet, so as far as your both concerned, lets keep creating prisons, and rehabilitation be thrown aside.
This plainly misreads much of what both Carl and I said. That whole thing about hoping he's on the road to sobriety and has given up his life of crime would be evidence that we believe in rehabilitating criminals. Indeed, our criminal justice systems works very hard to give some meaningful rehabilitation to those who wind up on the wrong side of it.
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I find your defending your affiliation with law enforcement admirable. I disagree with your positions. I have achieved nothing but a polarization affect on this thread.
You give yourself far too much credit.
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I'll continue to support all vets who reach out as i have in the past. you should see some of the pictures of my cousin's friends, 1000 miles stares still, 20 years later. I'll be sure to tell them to stay within the limits of the law as they are not a special subset of anything nor deserving of "extra" rights.
That's good advice. Veterans, ex-cops, former fire fighters . . . none of these people have a special right to cash in their good works in the past for a freebie on criminal violations of the law tomorrow.
Life is much like the military: what have you done for me lately? While good works are great for a person's life, bad works can undo them. It isn't a balancing test. I'd rather have a person in my life who never helped anyone, but also never went out of his way to break a law potentially killing someone than a guy who saved a thousand lives but feels entitled to engage in as risky a behavior as he chooses. Particularly when the risk he's assuming is on behalf of people who haven't consented to it.
Or do you really think veterans deserve a get out of jail free card? If so, where does it stop? DUI? Rape? Murder? Blue collar crime?
Please, spare us the psychological attempts to intuit what we think and feel. We answered your situation with respect to all the facts, good and bad alike, as they were presented.
Frequently in conversations like this, at least for my part, my personal feelings aren't relevant to the reality of what is. But for the record: I wish veterans had an equal time of measured reintegration back into society to what they missed by being forward deployed. I doubt you'd find many veterans who would welcome that, though. And our government has fallen out of the habit of forcing people to get the help they need unless and until they run into the wrong side of the law. Then, incidentally, as an additional measure to incarceration, they're forced to undergo counseling for drug abuse, alcoholism and the like. I think that's called rehabilitation.
The system isn't perfect, but making it perfect is extremely expensive and probably not possible.
In short: your cousin at least 4 times chose to drive drunk and was convicted for it. He did the crime, he deserves the time.
Apart from that, he needs to seek counseling. We can't force meaningful counseling on people, but we can force meaningful time in a prison/jail, which solves the problem of the threat they pose to random society for a set period of time. What he ultimately makes of his life is entirely in his hands.
Re: Demeaning Parole Agent
Taken from: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?s...3&archive=true
"We were seeing a lot of cases of our veterans in Illinois … were getting in trouble with the law — a lot of DUIs and a lot of domestic abuse," she said. "We were getting calls from the state police, you know the local sheriffs saying, ‘Hey, we got another one or yours, let’s take care of him before he gets into too much trouble.’ "
This is the attitude I hoped to see and to promote, and to see it implemented as a valid approach at least some where. Not the attitudes I'm reading here. Reading the responses here it seems misscharacterizing and confusing issues is the order of the day.
My question has been answered, and thank everyone for their feedback.
Re: Demeaning Parole Agent
Of course, you will note that the response was asking them to take care of the problem before the veteran in trouble got in to TOO MUCH trouble. This implies that these folks was not given a free pass, but were directed to services - likely in addition to any criminal penalties, or with the threat of such penalties hanging over them (much the same opportunity as I presume your family member once had). This same thing happens out here - I see it with some frequency. The problem is, far too often - as Ashman pointed out - the veteran fails to follow through or seek out assistance.
The state can NOT just grab the veterans in trouble up off the street and force them in to treatment. We have a guy here who just yesterday tried to kill himself ... he's a veteran of Iraq and may have PTSD. he hasn't gotten in to trouble with the law before, but he has had a lot of stress and numerous VA referrals. Unfortunately, he blows them off, tells family he's fine, and on the rare occasion the family would actually get him to the VA, he'd blow off the treatment or fail to attend any future meetings.
My best friend is in Medical Services for the Army and says that one of the hardest elements of his job is convincing returning veterans to follow through with therapy or to even acknowledge they might NEED therapy. Too many try to ignore the problem or tough it out ... this is the wrong thing to do, but he has no alternative.
The state cannot MAKE someone accept treatment. If your family member has sought the help he needs and is working towards recovery, great! I can only hope he will go forth and commit no more crimes. If he has not received the aid he needs, then hopefully his family can assist him in getting the aid. In the meantime, if he breaks the law and puts lives at risk, he will be punished accordingly.
Good luck to him.
- Carl
Re: Demeaning Parole Agent
Thats amazing. Vets have been ignored by the VA in every instance I know of. They're made to fill out paper work to request help and when no one gets back to them, they go back and do it again, and still no one gets back to them, until, hopefully they go away.
Here i was hoping to demonstrate how in Illinois the Sheriff department picks up the phone, calls the VA and asks for help on behalf of vets. This makes the difference in how the VA responds. I've never seen or heard of that done here in Los Angeles. And yet your saying vets must SEEK help, they do. They must carry treatment to completion. How if no help is offered?
Whith that response I see there is nothing more to say. Let me just clarify that:
At no time was I asking that he NOT be convicted or do jail time for his DUI.
At no time was I validating his offenses.
The issue was does he deserve to be treated in the class with druggies and gangsters.
Here the answer is yes. Here the answer is cops have a right to be rude. Here the sentiment is i lost someone to a drunk or a crazy vet, so prosecute both to the fullest extent.
If vets resist treatment on release, they should not be precluded from services at a later date.
I've become weary of dealing with extrapolated issues on this question. It appears the sentiments on this board are clear and no one need intuit anyones feelings on this matter.
Re: Demeaning Parole Agent
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tenantweary
Thats amazing. Vets have been ignored by the VA in every instance I know of. They're made to fill out paper work to request help and when no one gets back to them, they go back and do it again, and still no one gets back to them, until, hopefully they go away.
I'm guessing you don't know of many instances then. The VA of which I'm aware goes out of its way to treat veterans including paying for them to be treated by the UW Physicians - on the governtment's nickel even. They're so understaffed that they pay for people to go to the UW for treatment, which isn't cheap.
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Here i was hoping to demonstrate how in Illinois the Sheriff department picks up the phone, calls the VA and asks for help on behalf of vets. This makes the difference in how the VA responds. I've never seen or heard of that done here in Los Angeles. And yet your saying vets must SEEK help, they do. They must carry treatment to completion. How if no help is offered?
It does not say, however, that the people weren't prosecuted for their crimes.
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Here the answer is yes. Here the answer is cops have a right to be rude. Here the sentiment is i lost someone to a drunk or a crazy vet, so prosecute both to the fullest extent.
It isn't just here; it's the law of the land handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States of America. They said that cops can be rude and that it doesn't violate the constitution.
I think anyone who commits serious offenses should be severely punished, including vets, cops, fire fighters, politicians and priests.
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If vets resist treatment on release, they should not be precluded from services at a later date.
As a rule, they aren't. There are specific cases in which this happens because the program the veteran walked out on is so hard to get into that the waiting list for it can be lengthy.
Unfortunately, the VA has finite resources and limited time. But that's a policy and finance issue you should take up with your congressional folks through their offices. If there's a public outcry for money for a particular program (and ones servicing veterans should be at the top of the list), it'll get funded. George Washington noted that the quality of servicemen a nation can recruit depends on how well they're treated when they're veterans. But this website isn't going to change the budget cuts the Bush Administration has levied against the VA.
Re: Demeaning Parole Agent
And finally an appropriate reaction by state government to deal with the condition of our troops on return from a combat zone. A response not available to troops of Desert Storm. Through networking I've realized my cousins story is sadly not unique, but very common.
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticl...=1202426915992