Heading Into Third Year, Forsyth Veterans Court Seeks More Mentors

Only four North Carolina counties have a treatment court for veterans who have been charged with criminal offenses, and Forsyth is one of them. It will enter its third year early in 2019. It's run by Judge David Sipprell, who served as an attorney during his time in the Air Force. 

Sipprell says people shouldn't be worse off for having served the country.

“If as a result of your military service you developed PTSD or anxiety disorder, or you were given pain medications to deal with an injury and now you're hooked on opiates or whatnot, then I think we as a country owe it to you to mend you as much as possible.”

He spoke with WFDD's Paul Garber about the court.

Interview Highlights:

Sipprell says that a typical offender who comes through the program may have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or another diagnosis such as anxiety disorder. They may have attempted to deal with it by turning to alcohol or drugs. He sees a lot of charges like DWI or possession of drugs, as well as crimes related to behaviors that come out of addictions, such as assault or domestic violence.

“We get them into court, we get them into substance abuse treatment or mental health treatment. And one of the benefits of our particular court is the participants are eligible for VA services. So the treatment is freely provided to them. We just have to get them connected to that. So that's a cost that our treatment court doesn't have to incur like other treatment courts.”  

There are currently about a dozen people enrolled in the program, most of whom have disorders that can be at least partially tied to their time in service.

A key part of the court is the use of mentors - fellow service members who can help them in their recovery. Sipprell says he'd like to see the court grow. For that to happen, more veterans will be needed to assist the defendants.

“Ideally, in a perfect world, you match up those mentors as close as you can based on branch of service, time of service, sex, age - those kinds of things - to match them with somebody who is really going to understand them as best as possible.  And for that we need as large a pool of mentors as possible.”

Last summer, the program lost funding and it appeared that it could lose its program director as a result. He says he found help within the courthouse.

“We're very fortunate that our Clerk of Court, Susan Frye...graciously gave us one of her assistant clerk positions as our veterans court coordinator.  There's always funding issues, but that was a huge, huge relief to get that position taken care of.”

He says the court funding issue wasn't a referendum on whether the money was well spent on the court, but instead the court got caught up in a larger fiscal fight that had nothing to do with it.

“Most of the political forces that we've talked to are all very supportive of veterans treatment courts. We have a foundation that has raised a fair bit of money for us already. If we can get that to where that could sustain a court that would be my preference, so we don't have to deal with constantly having to apply for grant money.”

That foundation is Forsyth County Veterans Court Inc., a non-profit that accepts donations from the public.