As director of the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, I am proud to lead an organization that is committed to enhancing our capacity to assist crime victims and to changing attitudes, policies, and practices to promote justice and healing for all victims of crime.
A signature component of my term as OVC director can be condensed into one simple message—victims count and their voices matter.
I adapted this phrase from a clever one coined by Bill Bratton, the former New York City and Boston police commissioner and former Los Angeles police chief. He says “Cops count, police matter” when describing the importance and value of the police profession.1
I strongly believe it can be applied to victims and survivors as well. It becomes especially pertinent in discussions about criminal justice reform policy, strengthening relationships between law enforcement and the community, and building community trust. When the voices of victims are included in these conversations, they add a level of authenticity; richness; and, importantly, hard reality.
Each victim who makes the brave choice to report crime and engage with the criminal justice system forms a perception of that system based on their interactions. That view, whether good or bad, often comes down to one primary thing: how they were treated. Rarely do people go to the police with good news. Rather, they come at their worst moments, their most vulnerable, looking for help. In the first few minutes of interaction, victims either feel validated in their decision to report or regret making the call.
Redefining how we interact with crime victims [is] essential to building community trust.
Redefining how we interact with crime victims and including them in problem-solving are essential to building or repairing community trust. Victims will tell their families, friends, and neighbors how they were treated, and their accounts will contribute to larger community perceptions of law enforcement. And that will likely influence the next person in that family or community who makes the decision about whether or not to report a crime. For progress to be made in this area, all law enforcement personnel need access to affordable, effective, and evidence-based training on trauma-informed interviewing and investigations.
To that end, OVC funds several programs that feature partnerships with our law enforcement colleagues to better meet victim needs, infuse victim-centered and trauma-informed responses into police practices, and build solid relationships with the communities served.
Enhancing Law Enforcement Response to Victims (ELERV)—We have worked in partnership with the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) on this growing and evolving initiative since 2003. This program introduces law enforcement leaders to the benefits of and methods for adopting victim-centered, trauma-informed philosophies to improve the response to crime victims. In Fiscal Year 2020, the IACP released the second edition of ELERV, which incorporates lessons learned from the three jurisdictions that successfully implemented it—Casper, Wyoming; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Saginaw, Michigan.2 The second edition includes videos that introduce the strategy and the four core principles, customizable templates that can be used to enhance communication with victims, tools that can aid in victim response efforts, and resources developed by organizations that support law enforcement’s role in serving victims. In Fiscal Year 2022, we plan to bring on a member of the law enforcement community as an ELERV Fellow. The ELERV Fellow will help us promote the ELERV strategy and liaise with the law enforcement community to collect feedback on challenges, successes, and barriers in implementing the ELERV strategy and embedding victim advocates in police departments—and what we can do to make it better.
Law Enforcement-Based Direct Victim Services Program (LEV)—This program provides funding to law enforcement agencies so they may hire and sustain victim service providers to improve the overall response to victims of crime, with a strong emphasis on reaching and serving victims in high-crime areas. To date, OVC has directly funded more than 70 LEV sites. Starting this year, the IACP will make and manage all the subawards to law enforcement agencies.
Vicarious Trauma Response Initiative (VTRI)—Through this OVC initiative, the IACP provides resources and training and technical assistance to 12 communities seeking to build interdisciplinary, cross-agency collaborations to assess and address the impact of vicarious trauma on agencies’ staff. When law enforcement agencies’ staff address their own trauma, they are better equipped to respond to victims.
Enhanced Collaborative Model Task Force to Combat Human Trafficking (ECM)—This program develops or sustains multidisciplinary task forces to combat human trafficking, with an emphasis on employing a victim-centered, trauma-informed approach across all task force activities, operations, and services. OVC and OVC-funded training and technical assistance providers support the task forces as they conduct outreach and public awareness activities, train community members and other stakeholders, facilitate peer-to-peer exchanges, and develop protocols that govern task force operations and service delivery. In all these activities, the core partners—law enforcement, service providers, survivors, and victims—are constantly working to build trust. To date, OVC has funded more than 100 grant awards under this initiative, totaling over $74 million.
Integrity, Action, and Justice: Strengthening Law Enforcement Response to Domestic and Sexual Violence Demonstration Initiative—This initiative supports the IACP as they build the capacity of six law enforcement agencies to raise awareness about the existence and impact of gender bias and improve their response to sexual assault and domestic violence victims. The project ends September 30, 2022, and we look forward to learning about the best practices that have resulted from this initiative.
You can find more about the awardees of each program by searching keywords at ovc.ojp.gov/funding/awards/list.
At OVC, we place a high priority on encouraging our law enforcement partners to help us expand access to and improve services for victims and survivors. We are grateful for the lifesaving support that law enforcement officers provide each day and for the essential role officers play in helping crime victims and survivors find their justice. d
Notes:
1William Bratton and George L. Kelling, “Cops Count, Police Matter: Of Tactics and Strategy,” Police Chief 79 (December 2012): 54–59.
2Office for Victims of Crime, “Strategy Helps Law Enforcement Connect with Victims and Build Community Trust,” news release, February 17, 2021.
Please cite as
Kristina Rose, “Building Community Trust through Law Enforcement’s Response to Victims of Crime,” From the Director, Police Chief 89, no 7 (July 2022): 8–9.
