Military veterans in prison view their experience as being less punitive compared to non-veterans

There are more than 140,000 military veterans incarcerated in US prisons, many of whom have been sentenced for violent and sexual crimes. But given their military experience, do veterans find prison to be less punitive compared to non-veterans? In new research, David C. May, Kristen L. Stives, Makeela J. Wells, and Peter B. Wood surveyed prisoners from six prisons to determine their ‘exchange rate’ – how many months a person is willing to serve of an alternative sanction to avoid a 12 month prison sentence. They find that veteran inmates were willing to serve almost twice as much time in the military to avoid prison as non-veteran inmates, and that among non-veterans, Blacks viewed the military as being more punitive than prison.