Veterans in Prison

The advertisement below for ‘Prison In Reach’ was aimed at all troops/veterans in the prison population – published in the January 2009 issue of the Inside Time Newspaper, a national monthly newspaper issued free of charge for prisoners in the UK.

Outrageously the problem staring ‘Prison In Reach’ in the face is the phenomenon of the high numbers of ex-soldiers in the prison population – yet still In Reach persist to shy away from tackling this problem which is also the key connection to the very high numbers of troops/veterans unknowingly suffering combat related PTSD (CRPTSD).  Prison In Reach are wrong to ignore their responsibility especially when they continue to flannel and sweet talk people into believing they are doing something positive by advertising worthless help and support to deal with this issue in the prison population.  In plain squaddie language its complete ‘bullshit’, something which look impressive on the surface – but peel away the outer layers and you will find there is absolutely no help whatsoever for troops/veterans who are unknowingly suffering CRPTSD inside the prison system and also the most likely cause of their imprisonment!

Veterans In Prison (VIP) cannot believe that this is happening. We cant believe that the Government given the facts about the very high numbers of ex-soldiers in the prison population and who only recently became aware of this problem because VIP and the Probation Service Union (NAPO) doing a survey and publishing these figures – are promoting Prison In Reach to manage this ongoing catastrophe!  The very same Prison In Reach that were warned about this devastating tragedy in October 2004 and did absolutely nothing about it – and the same Prison In Reach who still do not want to ask the question ‘why’ there are thousands of ex-soldiers in the prison population?

Astonishingly In Reach still blindly carry on to miss the point and give out useless misinformation as for example:  their advertisement reassures troops/veterans of the help and support available to all former members of the Armed Forces who find themselves in prison or who are probation offenders – of the types and levels of help and support they can get stating: “As a veteran, Prison In Reach promotes the help you can get before as well as after your release so you can be successful in civvy street”.

Scandalously it is not as simple as what Prison In Reach are saying – because if troops/veterans are unknowingly suffering CRPTSD then they don’t know or realise that their actions and behaviour are being controlled by a mental disorder that comes into play each time they come under pressure – a sort of extra hidden gear in their mind which overrides their normal thinking process without their knowledge.  In fact its pure lies to say or suggest that troops/veterans can be successful whilst unknowingly suffering CRPTSD and tragically the longer this mental illness is ignored – the stronger it becomes a reality and calls the tune of everyday life behaviour for the troops/veterans concerned!

Surely Prison In Reach know that the vast majority of troops/veterans who have served in wars/conflicts are the personnel to be unknowingly suffering CRPTSD – and the authorities have also got to realise and admit that troops/veterans suffering this disorder are never going to be rehabilitated and lead normal lives again whilst unknowingly suffering this disorder.  It is therefore no use the Prison Service cajoling troops/veterans who are unknowingly suffering CRPTSD into doing rehabilitation programmes such as ‘Anger Management or Offending Behaviour’ courses under the pretext of rehabilitating them because CRPTSD will unsuspectingly countermand any of these reintegration courses – as it simply does not disappear with age.

Accordingly all troops/veterans in the prison population should be compulsory checked for symptoms of CRPTSD – and once recognised as suffering form this disorder they should then undergo a  treatment programme to educate and make them fully aware of how the disorder works and easily ‘masks’ itself without their knowledge before they  are released back into the community especially more so whilst these troops/veterans are in the prison system – not only for the sake of the troops/veterans concerned and  at risk but also for their potential victims!

The Prison In Reach advertisement also promotes the Service Personnel and SPVA part of the MoD – which pathetically is too involved and dependant on trying to emphasize and minimise the problems and consequences of CRPTSD rather than doing anything positive about it and the more you read their website the more extraordinary it gets as for instance.

Major General Sykes (Defence Service Secretary) states at the Veterans UK Annual Conference 2008: “We are working hard, nevertheless, to address the problems of the minority such as those who have taken to life on the streets.  Often these problems are he same as for the general population – broken relations, losing a job, leaving prison, mental illness, alcohol dependence.”  Seemingly the General has the gall to suggest that the very high rates of troops/veterans suffering ‘alcoholism/divorce/homelessness and prison’ is the normal wear and tear of the cycle of life and has got absolutely nothing to do with CRPTSD!

Unfortunately this may come as a hell of a surprise to the Defence Services Secretary but if he bothered to check these figures he would find a regular occurrence reported in newspapers of ‘Drug Busts’ in Battalions and Regiments who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan – a report revealed about 800 soldiers were testing positive for drugs each year (that’s two Battalions of Infantry)!  There is also a very serious problem amongst soldiers with drinking alcohol – a recent Daily Mirror newspaper article ‘Harmed Forces’ (22/12/08/) quoted a MoD report stating: ‘One in five soldiers admitted they could not stop drinking once they started and a third said they had injured themselves or someone else in the previous 12 months in alcohol related incidents and 58% were possibly dependent on alcohol – nearly 10 times higher than the rate in civilian life.

The numbers of homeless ex-soldiers living on the streets is unknown although one survey of the Homeless in London put he numbers of ex-servicemen as a quarter of the homeless population – and 95% of those were ex-soldiers!  The extraordinary huge mountain of ex-soldiers in the prison population is also the magical figure of at least 10 times higher than any other profession in the prison population – including Royal Navy and RAF personnel put together.  Tragically around 8/9% of the prison population are ex-soldiers which is a statement in itself and proof that something is very seriously wrong – in plain language it means ‘that out of every 100 soldiers who serve in wars/conflicts such as Iraq or Afghanistan at least 8 or 9 of them are going to prison’!

Disgracefully there are also large numbers of suicides amongst soldiers serving in Iraq (at least 3 soldiers have committed suicide in Iraq in the same number of weeks between January and February 2009) and God knows how many will commit suicide in Afghanistan as more and more troops are deployed into that war?  There are also the countless numbers of suicides amongst other veteran soldiers from previous wars/conflicts such as the Falklands war – ask Plaid Cymru MP Mr Elfin Llwyd he has been campaigning about the shocking large numbers of Welsh Guards committing suicide since the  Falklands war (as a barrister and an MP he has also noticed an increasing number of ex-servicemen appearing before the courts in North Wales and Cheshire for very serious offences)!

Furthermore Major General Sykes continues with the same bullshit as Prison In Reach saying: “That in order to ensure that those few veterans who unfortunately find themselves in prison are aware of support available, we have been actively pursuing a Prison In Reach initiative.  I am pleased that prison staff can now access the SPVA website on their intranet and that the welfare officers of ex-service organisations are better to be able to gain the ready access they need to undertake casework.  Prison In Reach now extends beyond England and Wales to Scotland and Northern Ireland.  For the future we have plans to survey accurately the ex-service prison population across the UK.  We have also offered the services of our veteran mental health consultant for those cases where normal mental health professions  want advice on a possible link to service and what that may mean for treatment”

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Prison In Reach and the Veterans Agency Advertisements do exactly everything that they say they are going to do for troops/veterans unknowingly suffering CRPTSD inside the prison system – absolutely nothing!  Additionally and exactly like prison In Reach the Defence Services Secretary does not recognise the enormity and seriousness of this problem of high numbers of ex-soldiers in the prison population – he openly admits that no one has yet bothered to survey the numbers of ex-soldiers in the prison population (5 month after this scandal was published in the national newspapers)?   Is the real reason for this blasé attitude regarding these high numbers of troops/veterans in the prison system that when VIP and NAPO came up with the figures and found that around 8/9% of the prison population were ex-soldiers – the Home Office also did a survey of their own at HMP Dartmoor and found the alarming figures of 17% of that prison were ex-servicemen – so dropped their research sharpish!

Its no use the Defence Services Secretary harping on about offering the services of the Mod’s mental health consultant to the Prison Services psychologists/psychiatrists for possible links to troops/veterans service – when the vast majority of troops/veterans ‘do not know or realise’ that they are suffering from CRPTSD!  So the problem to implement what General Sykes is saying regarding the MoD’s Veterans health consultant and the prison services psychologists/psychiatrists is “how do troops/veterans do this – ‘diagnose themselves’?  This is double talk, a double cross and a betrayal by the Veterans Agency, their mental health expert and the Prison service psychiatrist/psychologist unit!

The Government have got to look at and deal with this problem by looking at the root causes as for example:  ‘how many troops/veterans have served in wars/conflicts and are likely to be suffering CRPTSD?  Then deal with this monster by educating them with what CRPTSD is really all about – as for example: ‘how CRPTSD works and how and why it controls their behaviour in different and certain situations’ because only when troops/veterans realise they are suffering form this mental disorder will anything be able to be done for them to start coping and dealing with this problem properly – and no matter what the authorities say the problem is not going to go away.  It s going to get worse especially when more troops are being deployed into Afghanistan.

Nevertheless the most preposterous part of the Defence Services Secretary’s disinformation statement comes in his summing up saying: “let me finally say something about our health monitoring arrangements. A major issue in the past has been that health problems arising from operational exposures have only been identified late in the day – often when conditions are more difficult to treat.  For this reason, we have since 2003 had in place independent research to monitor the health and social outcomes for those deployed on major operations – comparing them both with personnel who did not deploy and with the position for the population as a whole.  This work is being undertaken by the world respected team at Kings College London.  It has already proven its worth.  Crucially it has not found any particular problem of the sort found among veterans of the 1990/91 Gulf Conflict: equally it has shown that levels of mental illness are not generally higher among the deployed”

Who does Major Sykes think he’s kidding – or does he think we are all from another planet?  His so called world respected team at Kings College London have probably never been in combat and have definitely never suffered CRPTSD – but if you select the right people you get the answers you want by people who are obliged to deliver the Governments policy aren’t you General Sykes (unlike the American military who learnt their lessons about CRPTSD from their Vietnam veterans).

Surgeon Commander Greenberg stated in The Times newspaper (November 2008) ‘that troops who were sent to Afghanistan in 2007 were, according to figures, nine times more likely to suffer CRPTSD ,and those sent to Iraq were six times more vulnerable than Service personnel who had no  experience of either operations.  Major General Robin Short, former Director General of Army Medical Services appeared before the commons Defence Services Committee in February 2008 and told them: “that PTSD is a considerable problem and that it was likely to grow because of the high tempo of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan” he also said that the MoD had failed to learn from improvements of America’s military had  made in the treatment of PTSD!

Major General (Rtd) Dr Robin Short CB now uses the Veterans In Prison Survival Guide to CRPTSD – he calls the Guide a Magnum Opus in the field of PTSD and very much appreciated by the families of troops/veterans suffering CRPTSD.  So there is in fact real help for troops/veterans who are unknowingly suffering CRPTSD and the way forward is for the Survival Guide to be issued to all troops/veterans (and their families) returning from wars/conflicts so they can recognise when CRPTSD is unknowingly influencing their behaviour – but for some unknown reason the MoD wish to keep troops/veterans (and their families) in the dark and pretend that this ongoing tragedy is not happening?

Footnote: in this day and age if only one veteran is homeless, in prison or has committed suicide because of unknowingly suffering CRPTSD – especially when the veterans Survival Guide can prevent this – then its one too many.  However when thousands and thousands of Britain’s troops/veterans are still unknowingly suffering CRPTSD in the same circumstances today – then it’s our Nations shame owing to the Governments dereliction of its duty to its troops/veterans!