Corrections_Today_September_October_2023_Vol.85_No.5

View from the Line

HOW DO I ACCESS VRSS?

As a correctional facility or court system employee, you can access VRSS by going to https://vrss.va.gov. From there, you can register for a new account or login to the system if you already have an account.

2013. As of that morning, we had 19 individuals who had identified as a veteran on their intake form. The VRSS search told us there were actually 44 people with a history of military service in our custody. This discovery gave us the information we needed to begin building a specialized program

for these former service members. We worked with national partners, including VA and the Wounded War

rior Project ; local partners, such as McLean Hospital and the Framing ham Veterans’ Treatment Court ; and veterans on our own staff to design what would come to be known as the Housing Unit for Military Veterans, or HUMV. Centered on cognitive behavioral therapy programming and robust reentry services, HUMV became our first specialty unit and sparked the programming model for which the Middlesex Sheriff’s Office is now known. Today, the HUMV has served hundreds of veterans and become

a national model replicated in cor rectional agencies from Maine to Arizona. Most importantly, our one year recidivism rate stands at 15.28% – almost half our facility-wide rate and nearly a third of the statewide three-year recidivism rate in Massa chusetts. It is a testament to one of the mantras we’ve developed here at the Middlesex Sheriff’s Office: Unique programming for a unique population can produce unique results. It all started with that first VRSS search. Today, VA and the Veterans Justice Outreach (VJO) Program has made it easier than ever to complete

HOW DOES VRSS WORK?

1. Go to www.vrss.va.gov to access the web-based portal, which requires no downloads or special training. 2. Drop a single file with your popula tion’s information into VRSS. 3. The system will provide an auto mated identification of charged, convicted and incarcerated Veterans in your population. 4. An electronic list of the defendant and/or prisoner identification num bers of those identified as Veterans will be transmitted back to you to facilitate outreach with the identified individuals. 5. At the same time, these results will be sent to the VA specialist responsible for your facility or geographic area.

Today, VA and the Veterans Justice Outreach (VJO) Program has made it easier than ever to complete one of these searches for your own facility.

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