Victim Advocate Role Analysis

The National Victim Assistance Standards Consortium (NVASC) is a set of ethical principles intended to guide victim assistance providers in handling everyday matters and less frequent ethical conflicts by clearly outlining the expected professional behavior. Victim assistance providers’ work with extremely vulnerable populations and all measures must be taken to ensure the competent, honest and professional treatment of all persons served. NVASC Ethical Standard 2.1 reads: “The victim assistance provider conducts relationships with colleagues and other professionals in such a way as to promote mutual respect, public confidence and improvement of service” (FIX). This ethical standard highlights the transparency and interagency cooperation that is required as a public servant. Victim service departments exist in many different areas of community-based care, such as at a battered women’s shelter or at the state attorney’s office.

One particular positive is that plea bargains take into account the victims needs and include the victims throughout the plea-bargaining process. In the past, victims issues were not heard and often created secondary victimization. Erez and Tontodonato (1990) found that “The most consistent result emerging from the studies was victims’ frustration with and alienation from the system” (p.452). Listening to victims needs is important and has come to the forefront in recent years. Although prosecutors, Crowns, and judges do not have to take the victim's statement into account, it is important for their voices to be heard.

Previous research on victim impact statements has indicated that higher emotionality of the victim impact statements will lead to harsher punishments of the defendant (Myers et al., 1999; Myers et al., 2002), as well as favorability towards the victim (Myers & Greene 2004). Contradictory to earlier findings, participants who were not perspective taking with the

Unlike the diversionary program, this program isn’t intended to offer offenders less punishment to their crimes, much less be attentive to their needs, instead, it seeks to offer victims the chance to encounter their offender and ask questions about the crime only they know the answers to. While equally important, the therapeutic restorative justice programs have been effective for victims to be able to heal and obtain answers to those troubling questions they may have for their offender. This has led to a program by Kim Book called the Victims Voices Heard Program that aims to specifically help only the victims of sexual violence or crimes that have taken place by people who know one another. The goal of this program is to heal victims from self-blame and from the fear that has been inflicted upon them. Miller later provides an example as to how the program has been effective for one offender and victim that proves the program to be of great assistance and

This paper will go in detail about a conducted in-person interview on a victim advocate named Christine Heer. Christine has a Master’s degree in Social work (MSW), including a Juris Doctor degree (JD). In addition, she is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and a Domestic Violence Specialist (DVS). Christine earned her education at Rutgers University and has been practicing social work for as long as 27 years and is still going strong. She is also part of the NASW Ethics committee. Christine’s work mainly involves with victim assistance services that specializes in family law, collaborative law, mediation, mental health, education and therapy. As of now, she is teaching at Rutgers Continuing Education and the Victim Assistance Academy.

The victim services professional I interviewed was Rene Carter, victim/witness assistant with the Cumberland County’s District Attorney’s Office. The criminal justice agent I interviewed was Detective M. Wooten, with the Fayetteville Police Department. Detective Wooten is a detective and has worked in different divisions of investigation to include property unit, person’s unit, robbery unit, and aggravated assault unit. Each person was asked the same question and the following are the answers to those questions:

When considering all the different types of victims out there, it is important to keep in mind the hardships they experienced to be labeled a victim. Although victims may come out the situation stronger, so victims still prefer to keep the crime to themselves. We like to think to ourselves, “Why would someone keep a crime amongst themselves?” A victim may have had a horrific past experience with law enforcement and feel they would be unsuccessful or not take the situation seriously. The victim may think the crime could be better handle personally, or that the crime is a personal matter. There is also the possibility of the victim feeling they

Throughout every state and county across the United States there are various means for offering assistance to victims of crime. Each municipality has its own victim advocacy program. For smaller areas such as rural counties they use the next organizational level up as their victim advocates. For the purpose of this paper I sat down with Ms. Mari Dennis of the Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD). Ms. Dennis is employed as the Victim Advocacy Unit Coordinator and is embedded within the Investigations division of the department. CSPD employs four staff victim advocates and around 35 volunteer advocates.

The ability to remember, comprehend, apply, evaluate, analyze, and create are key components to an effective victim advocate.

When a victim first decides to seek help through a domestic violence shelter they may start by reaching out through a crisis hotline service or by meeting with an advocate. Each employee and volunteer is required to go through a training to help them learn to assist with a crisis situation. A crisis hotline is available at all times for any one that feels they need someone to talk to about an abusive situation (Bennett, Riger, Schewe, Howard, & Wasco, 2004). A meeting with an advocate is beneficial when a victim wants to sit down and have a serious talk about their options for leaving their abuser and what may happen afterwards. The advocate will go with the victim to legal and medical appointments as a support system. (Bennett et al, 2004). Bennett et al (2004) reported that after following a group of women who were using an advocate services for a 10 week period, 24 percent of those women were no longer being abused by the original abuser or by another partner. This is a big step compared to the 10 percent of women who were longer being abused without any help from an

In 2014, a mother/ex wife released her victim offender mediation story with the “Community Justice Initiatives Association”. This particular case was about her son’s father who was brutally attacked after being in an argument with the offender that is named “M” in the story. The ex husband died the next day due to a brain hemorrhage. The mother explained that her ex husband suffered from alcohol abuse and so did the offender. The ex wife found out before “M” was an offender before he was actually a victim and a product of a family that was part of residential schooling through his First Nation tribe. About a year past and the ex wife wanted to set up a healing circle with “M” so that her son can have some closure with his father’s death because he was having a hard time dealing with it. The son and his mother got to meet with the offender in a mediation circle to hopefully heal with all parties involved. At first this circle was hard for the son but later on opened up about the whole situation that led him to let all the weight off of his shoulders and got release some resentment off of his fathers killer. On another hand the mother had an opportunity to fully digest what the offender was saying and came to a conclusion that “M” is an oppressed person that had history of addiction and anger issues, which led to her forgiving the offender after the mediation process.

A person who experiences a traumatic event may be expected to experience a range of psychological effects, and, for many years, it was assumed that these psychological effects would be the same regardless of the cause of the injury. However, a growing body of knowledge is demonstrating that the impact of criminal victimization is different than the impact of other types of injuries because the intent element makes a difference in how the victim perceives the harm. In addition, victims of different crimes may respond differently to victimization. The psychological effects of victimization are important because they can help guide the criminal justice system for how to interact with victims and how to make the process more victim-appropriate. For example, victims of violent crimes, like sexual assaults, may benefit more from a victim-centered criminal justice approach than victims of other types of crimes (Resick, 1987). However, one of the problems with the traditional approach to victimology is that it has distinguished between different groups of victims. Emerging research suggest that victim needs are similar across the entire spectrum of crime, particularly the victims' needs for information about the crime and the needs for financial restitution to make them whole (ten Boom & Kuijpers, 2012).

Date rape is a serious offense and should be not taken lightly. The National Crime Victimization Survey and the Uniform Crime Reporting provides statistics on this offense. There are also strengths and weaknesses in both tools, but they are both valuable tools. To understand date rape, it is important to know the definition, and how date rape is distinguished between stranger rape, statutory rape, and spousal rape. It’s also important to understand the drugs that are used for date rape and how they are used. The relationship between the offender and the victim can also provide a better understanding of date rape. Finally I will provide my position on this issue and how

In a criminal investigation case, a victim is usually seeking justice for an offence against them personally. Victims can

Within society, there is an engrained belief of what makes a person a legitimate victim and often their status as a ‘victim’ is questioned. This is especially true if the victim does not fit the typical stereotype of who is considered to be a legitimate victim. This is most widely illustrated in cases involving male victims of sexual assault.