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ABSTRACT
This article presents the findings of the first empirical research project in Australia to explore the connection between military service and criminal offending from the perspective of the sentenced prisoner. Between 2018 and 2021, the authors undertook interviews with 16 male Australian Defence Force (ADF) veterans who had been sentenced to serve a term of imprisonment in South Australia, and were either still serving that sentence or had been released from prison within the previous five years. The veterans express a widespread and deeply held view that certain aspects of military training and culture can contribute, both directly and indirectly, to offending. The thematic analysis of the interview data discloses that military service is apt to have a criminogenic effect where veterans have experienced traumatic pre-service experiences.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank academic staff and post-graduate students of the Adelaide Law School who commented on the draft of this paper though the ‘brown bag’ series, and to attendees at the Criminal Law Workshop in Auckland in February 2020, who commented on a draft of the paper, and to attendees at the Global Alliance Conference on Post-Traumatic Stress 2019, the Adelaide Law School public seminar series 2019, the ASCN International Webinar and Working Roundtable Program on Military, Veterans & Families Wellbeing in 2020, and to several classes of military lawyers in the Legal Training Modules through the Military Law Centre comments on the initial findings of the research.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Letters Patent, establishing the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, 8 July 2021; Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, Terms of Reference (2021). https://defenceveteransuicide.royalcommission.gov.au/about/terms-reference.
2 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, A Profile of Australia’s Veterans, 2018 (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018) p 35.
3 Australian Government Productivity Commission, A Better Way to Support Veterans Volume 1: Productivity Commission Inquiry Report No. 93 (27 June 2019) p 93.
4 Commonwealth of Australia, Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee, The Constant Battle: Suicide by Veterans (August 2017) p 19.
5 Productivity Commission (2019) pp 112–120, 262.
6 The relatively small number of women in the ADF limits the opportunities for relevant research, but ex-service women have been found to be 1.6 times more likely to access homelessness services than ex-service men: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, ‘Use of Homelessness Services by Contemporary Ex-serving Australian Defence Force Members 2011–17’ (29 November 2019). American studies suggest that female veterans experience significant physical, psychosocial, and legal problems both before and after military service that increase their risk of incarceration: Bradley J Schaffer (2014) ‘Female Military Veterans: Crime and Psychosocial Problems’ 24(8) Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment pp 996–998. These results demonstrate the need for further research on female veterans.
7 Raymond Williams (1983) Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Oxford University Press, p 87.
8 Leonard Wong and Stephen J Gerras (2019) ‘Culture and Military Organizations’ in Peter R Mansoor and Williamson Murray, The Culture of Military Organizations, Cambridge University Press, p 17.
9 James Brown (2013) ‘Fifty Shades of Grey: Officer Culture in the Australian Army’ 10(3) Australian Army Journal pp 246–248.
10 Peter R Mansoor and Williamson Murray (2019) ‘Introduction’ in Peter R Mansoor and Williamson Murray, The Culture of Military Organizations, Cambridge University Press, p 3.
11 Wong and Gerras (2019) p 18.
12 Anne Goyne et al (2017) ‘Abuse of Power and Institutional Violence in the ADF: Culture Transformed? 198 Australian Defence Force Journal p 69.
13 DFWA Submission to Productivity Commission Inquiry into Compensation and Rehabilitation for Veterans Productivity Commission (July 2018) p 14.
14 DFWA Submission p 14.
15 Productivity Commission (2019) p 100.
16 James L Pease, Melodi Billera and Georgia Gerard (2016) ‘Military Culture and the Transition to Civilian Life: Suicide Risk and Other Considerations’ 61(1) Social Work p 83.
17 Department of Defence, Defence Census 2019 Public Report (November, 2020) p 2.
18 Productivity Commission (2019) p 7.
19 Defence Census (2020) p 22.
20 Foreign Affairs (2017) p 1.
21 Department of Defence, Annual Report 2020–2021 (August 2021) p 113.
22 Productivity Commission (2019) p 30.
23 See, for example, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2019); Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, ‘Medications Dispensed to Contemporary Ex-serving Australian Defence Force Members, 2017–18 (29 November 2019); Alexander McFarlane et al, ‘Mental Health in the Australian Defence Force: 2010 ADF Mental Health Prevalence and Wellbeing Study: Report (Department of Defence: Canberra, 2011); David Dunt, Review of Mental Health Care in the ADF and Transition through Discharge (January 2009); David Dunt, Independent Study into Suicide in the Ex-Service Community (January 2009).
24 See, for example, the concerns of Australian Greens Senator, Peter Whish-Wilson, a graduate of the Officer Training School, Australian Defence Force Academy, which led to the 2015 Senate inquiry: RN Breakfast, Parliamentary Inquiry into Mental Health in the Military (9 April 2015) https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/parliamentary-inquiry-into-mental-health/6379796.
25 McFarlane (2011) p 14.
26 Foreign Affairs (2017) p xvii.
27 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Serving and Ex-serving Australian Defence Force Members who have served since 1985: Suicide Monitoring 2001to 2019 (2021) pp 7, 9.
28 Institute of Health and Welfare (2021) pp 7, 9.
29 Institute of Health and Welfare (2021) p 9.
30 Productivity Commission (2019) p 93.
31 Deirdre MacManus et al (2015) ‘Aggressive and Violent Behavior Among Military Personnel Deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan: Prevalence and Link with Deployment and Combat Exposure’ 37 Epidemiologic Reviews p 196.
32 Michael Hakeem (1946) ‘Service in the Armed Forces and Criminality’ 37(2) Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology p 131.
33 Hakeem (1946) p 13.
34 Harry Willbach (1947-1948) ‘Recent Crimes and the Veterans’ 38 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology p 501.
35 Willbach (1947–1948) p 501.
36 Paul Sonne, ‘Trump Rankles Veterans with Comments about PTSD and California Shooter’, Washington Post (online at 10 November 10, 2018) https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-rankles-veterans-with-comments-about-ptsd-and-california-shooter/2018/11/09/2c4ab5ba-e463-11e8-a1c9-6afe99dddd92_story.html.
37 Deirdre MacManus (2013) ‘Violent Offending by UK Military Personnel Deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan: A Data Linkage Cohort Study’ 381 The Lancet pp 913–914.
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41 The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Inquiry of the Defence Sub-Committee, Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, Care of ADF Personnel Wounded and Injured on Operations (June 2013).
42 Young Diggers, Submission No 22 to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, Inquiry into the Care of ADF Personnel Wounded and Injured on Operations (June 2013).
43 The Senate, Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee, Mental Health of Australian Defence Force Members and Veterans (March 2016).
44 Royal Australian Regiment Association, Submission No. 46 to the Senate, Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee, Mental Health of Australian Defence Force Members and Veterans (March 2016) p 1.
45 Foreign Affairs (2016) p 142.
46 Foreign Affairs (2016).
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48 Greg A Greenberg and Robert A Rosenheck (2012) ‘Incarceration Among Male Veterans: Relative Risk of Imprisonment and Differences Between Veteran and Nonveteran Inmates’ 56(4) International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology p 662.
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54 Howard League for Penal Reform (2010) Leave No Veteran Behind: The Inquiry into Former Armed Service Personnel in Prison visits the United States of America, p 15.
55 Waddell (2021) pp 11, 14, 27–28.
56 Waddell (2021) p 31.
57 Christopher Tilley, Department for Correctional Services, DCS Custodial Military Veteran Analysis (19 December 2018).
58 Felicity Bell, ‘Empirical Research in Law’ (2016) 25(2) Griffith Law Review p 263.
59 Eleanor Knott et al ‘Interviews in the Social Sciences’ (2022) Nature Reviews Methods Primers 2(73) pp 1–11.
60 James L Flexner, Victoria Rawlings and Lynette Riley (2021) ‘Introduction: Walking Many Paths Towards a Community-Led Paradigm’ in Victoria Rawlings, James L Flexner and Lynette Riley (eds), Community-Led Research: Walking New Pathways Together, Sydney University Press, pp 1, 3.
61 Dara Sampson et al (2021) ‘Introduction: Walking Many Paths Towards a Community-Led Paradigm’ in Rawlings et al (2021) p 41.
62 Samantha McMahon and Anthony McKnight (2021) ‘It’s Right, Wrong, Easy and Difficult: Learning how to be Thoughtful and Inclusive of Community in Research’ in Rawlings et al (2021) p 66.
63 Sheelagh Daniels-Mayes (2021) ‘Researcher or Student? Knowing When Not to Know in Community-Led Indigenous Research’ in Rawlings et al (2021) p 128.
64 Brian Bourke, ‘Positionality: Reflecting on the Research Process’ (2014) 19(33) The Qualitative Report p 2.
65 Marl Fathi Massoud (2022) ‘The Price of Positionality: Assessing the Benefits and Burdens of Self-identification in Research Methods’ 49(S1) Journal of Law and Society p S66.
66 Stuart Hall (1990) ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora’ in Jonathon Rutherford (ed) Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, Lawrence & Wishart, p 18.
67 Greg Guest, Emily Namey and Mario Chen (2020) ‘A Simple Method to Assess and Report Thematic Saturation in Qualitative Research’ 15(5) PLoS ONE pp 1–2.
68 Guest (2020) et al pp 1–2.
69 Guest (2020) et al p 10.
70 Guest (2020) et al p 10.
71 Kirsti Malterud, Volkert Dirk Siersma and Ann Dorrit Guassora (2016) ‘Sample Size in Qualitative Interview Studies: Guided by Information Power’ 26(13) Qualitative Health Research pp 1754–1755.
72 Malterud et al (2016) pp 1755–1759.
73 University of Adelaide, Human Research Ethics Approval, Ex armed Service Personnel in the Criminal Justice System: Pathways to Offending, H-2017-022.
74 Nathaniel Cantor, ‘Causes of Crime’ (1933) 23(6) Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology p 1031.
75 Robert Agnew and Steven F Messner (2015) ‘General Assessments and Thresholds for Chronic Offending: An Enriched Paradigm for Explaining Crime’ 53(4) Criminology p 588.
76 Maureen A Allwood and Cathy Spatz Widom (2013) ‘Child Abuse and Neglect, Developmental Role Attainment, and Adult Arrests’50(4) Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency pp 561, 564.
77 Sunny H Shin et al (2016) ‘The Different Faces of Impulsivity as Links between Childhood Maltreatment and Young Adult Crime’ 88 Preventive Medicine p 210.
78 Shin (2016) p 214.
79 Joshua P Mersky et al (2012) ‘Unsafe at Any Age: Linking Childhood and Adolescent Maltreatment to Delinquency and Crime’ 49(2) Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency p 297.
80 Shin (2016) p 214.
81 Kirsten McCallum (2018) ‘Does PTSD Predict Institutional Violence within a UK Male Prison Population?’ 20(4) Journal of Forensic Practice p 230.
82 Amy Reckdenwald, Christina Mancini and Eric Beauregard (2013) ‘The Cycle of Violence: Examining the Impact of Maltreatment’ 28(3) Violence and Victims pp 467–469, 477.
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84 McCallum (2018) p 231.
85 Greenberg and Rosenheck (2012) p 647.
86 Leana Allen Bouffard (2005) ‘The Military as a Bridging Environment in Criminal Careers: Differential Outcomes of the Military Experience’ 31(2) Armed Forces & Society p 289.
87 Howard League for Penal Reform (2011) Report of the Inquiry into Former Armed Service Personnel in Prison, p 71.
88 Productivity Commission (2019) p 283.
89 The Royal Australian Armoured Corps Corporation, Submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (30 May, 2018) p 50.
90 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2017) p 11.
91 Productivity Commission (2019) p 31.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Kellie Toole
Kellie Toole teaches Criminal Law, Sentencing Law, Evidence Law and Military Disciplinary Law at the University of Adelaide. She practiced as a criminal defence lawyer and now undertakes research at the intersection of criminal law and human rights and social justice. Through Flinders University of South Australia, she is currently involved with contract research projects on veterans and criminal offending for the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.
Elaine Waddell
Elaine Waddell is an independent researcher with a background in social work and public health, and with three decades experience working with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Through Flinders University of South Australia, she is currently involved with multiple contract research projects on veterans, including veterans and criminal offending for the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.