The Carbon County Veterans Treatment Court took time Thursday to encourage local businesses to employ veterans with criminal records.

Potential employers from all different parts of the county met at the KME industrial complex to hear from the treatment court team, which included Judge Joseph J. Matika of Carbon County.

When speaking of the veterans court’s origins, Matika pointed out the uniqueness of the program to the crowd.

“We saw a need in our county court system to do something better and do something more … for those veterans who are in our criminal justice system,” Matika said. “The criminal justice system is an adversarial system, where the primary focus is on getting criminal cases through the system and punishing criminals.”

“The Veterans Treatment Court — and any specialty court — are different,” he said.

That difference Matika referred to can be summed up as this: taking a rehabilitative approach to veterans in the criminal justice system, rather than a punitive one.

The veterans court was launched in 2017. It’s a multifaceted partnership, including the Court of Common Pleas of the 56th Judicial District, the district attorney’s office, the public defender’s office, the county commissioners, the Carbon County Correctional Facility, the county adult probation office, the County Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The two-year program consists of five “phases,” followed by an aftercare phase post-graduation. It consists of regular status hearings, supervision, treatment and random drug testing.

“Our goal is to take these individuals — not necessarily have them go see Warden (Tim) Fritz up at the jail for extended periods of time — because our primary focus is to help them with the problems that got them in the criminal justice system in the first place,” Matika said.

“We help them get jobs — and that’s one of the primary focuses as I understand it of this meeting tonight — to perhaps employ some of our veterans as a way for them to get back into and reintegrated back into society without these problems,” he continued.

Three people are expected to graduate from veterans court this December; they will be the program’s first cohort.

Richmond Parsons, who serves as the chief adult probation officer, veterans court coordinator and chair of the county’s re-entry coalition, took the floor after Matika.

He started his address with a simple question: “How many people here have ever done anything wrong in their life?” he inquired. A small chuckle came from the audience. “So, we all have,” he said in answer to his own question.

Parsons said that as of Thursday, there were 2,036 offenders on probation or parole under the supervision of Carbon County.

“Approximately 1,000 of them live in our communities,” Parsons estimated. “We’re talking about your neighbors, we’re talking about your friends.”

“What we’re talking about are the vast majority of our caseloads that are individuals who made mistakes, who made sometimes very horrible choices in their life, sometimes had some very big struggles, and giving them that second chance, third chance sometimes, fourth chance sometimes,” he added.

Specifically, Parsons also made a case for hiring veterans with criminal records.

“At any one time, in Carbon County, I have about 125 of my offenders are veterans,” he said.

“This is our neighbors. These are our family,” he reiterated.