Award Date

May 2018

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Criminal Justice

First Committee Member

Randall Shelden

Second Committee Member

Terence Miethe

Third Committee Member

M. Alexis Kennedy

Fourth Committee Member

Kathleen Bergquist

Number of Pages

98

Abstract

The current study provides a systematic review of veteran treatment court research with two main purposes in mind. The first is to establish whether and how the courts adhere to current evidence-based best practices, and if such practices differ from other specialty court programs. The second is to establish whether and how the concepts of “moral injury” and “posttraumatic growth” are incorporated in current veteran treatment court research and court practices, as an indicator of the cultural competency of both researchers and practitioners. This is a groundbreaking study that expands current research on moral injury and posttraumatic growth from the psychology and theological fields to criminology. The study is limited in its ability to fully and comprehensively evaluate all current veteran treatment courts since there has been a limited amount of research conducted on them and the first such court was established just over a decade ago. Further research is needed to build on this review. This study may have wide policy implications, directly impacting veteran treatment courts by influencing sentencing decisions prior to the admission of a veteran into a veteran treatment court program or the assessment of mitigating circumstances in the criminal cases of military veterans.

Keywords

moral injury; posttraumatic growth; specialty court; veteran treatment court

Disciplines

Criminology | Criminology and Criminal Justice

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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