Veteran Status is Not a Mitigating Factor in Sentencing for Crime

Here.

Of course, veteran status is an aggravating factor.

1) Veterans were screened. They were superior to the general population. They endured training requiring great discipline and self control, to go forward in the face of live fire, not to run away, to coordinate attacks, to plan ahead, to judge great uncertainty, and to obey inscrutable orders. PTSD makes people try to avoid conflict, not hurt others.

2) What makes them hurt others are traditional reasons. Alcohol and caffeine addiction. Antisocial personality. Paranoid and mood disorders with onset after discharge, the average age being in the 30's and 40's.

3) Because being veteran implies training to hurt people, veterans are more dangerous than matched non-veterans. They should be incapacitated more than non-veterans.

4) The above reports, 1 in 12 prisoners are veterans. That validates veteran status as a protective factor against criminality. 1 in 4 adult males in the United States are veterans. Because of the screening, training, treatment, being a vet makes one more likely to be a moral, upstanding, productive person, and drops the chance of committing a crime by 2/3.

5) Making this a mitigating factor, is similar in logic to the Leona Helmsley defense. Juries did not buy it. She evaded $4 million in taxes, after claiming work on her private home as a business deduction. She claimed to have paid $400 million in taxes. What is $4 million after paying 100 times more? Large, past tax payments should mitigate her culpability and sentencing. Jury did not accept that argument.

6) The idea of veteran status as a mitigating factor is an insult to the sacrifices, and high level of performance of our service members.