“Virginia prison groups veterans together for support”

The title of this post is the headline of this notable new AP piece, which gets started this way:

A sergeant at arms, hazmat crew, and intelligence team working in uniform behind guarded gates and a barbed-wire fence isn’t anything out of the ordinary in this region that’s home to major military installations.  But the men chosen to perform those tasks a few miles from the North Carolina border are unusual.

Unlike their comrades who perform these duties on ships and bases, about 80 civilian prisoners are doing so as inmates at the medium-security Indian Creek Correctional Center.  Each served in the military before landing in prison, and state officials hope grouping them together to create a military environment will help change their lives and keep them from returning to prison.  About 2,000 of 30,000 inmates in the state prison system say they are veterans, though officials say there may be more.

The Virginia Department of Corrections opened two dormitories this summer exclusively for veterans — one at Indian Creek and another in Haynesville — where inmates have served in conflicts from Vietnam to Iraq.  Similar dorms have opened at several prisons in Florida, another state home to a large veteran population, as well as at a jail in Columbus, Ga., near Fort Benning.  The inmates receive therapy that addresses some problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anger issues or substance abuse problems that may have led to them winding up in prison.

Prison officials say these treatments help reduce recidivism among all inmates, but that grouping veterans together may be particularly effective.  “These offenders have a particular bond because of the service they did for their country, and what they learned when they were in the service, all the good things they learned in the service, all the discipline and structure, is morphed into this program so that those things can now be channeled positively to help them,” said Virginia Secretary of Public Safety Marla Decker.