Why We Need National Crime Victims’ Rights Week

By Mai Fernandez

Everybody knows that the accused have rights under our legal system.  But what rights do crime victims have? And what if their rights are not enforced?

GOP Prepares Alternative to Dem's Violence Against Women Act Bill

Senate Republicans have prepared an alternative to a bill to update the Violence Against Women Act, reports Politico. The GOP was in a gender-gap political predicament after all Republicans on the Judiciary Committee voted against the bill. Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison was recruited to help craft a new bill for her party. Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said female GOP senators “present a softer approach even though they’re very tough people.”

Sensing political advantage with 61 co-sponsors already for the Democratic bill, Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday called it “sad” that there was a debate over the measure in Congress now. And Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who is leading her party’s campaign efforts, said it was Democrats who were “standing tall” on behalf of women in the debate over the Violence Against Women Act. When the Violence Against Women Act heads to the floor as soon as this week, Hutchison — who is not on the Judiciary Committee — will offer an alternative that gives Republicans something to vote for while they vote against the Democratic version.

Detained Rape Victim Is Freed, With GPS and Apology from Judge

A 17-year-old alleged rape victim – detained for a day on a warrant to ensure her appearance in court against the man accused of attacking her – has been freed by a judge in Sacramento but must wear an electronic monitor, reports the city's Bee. "This case has charted thankfully rare legal territory," said Judge Lawrence G. Brown. "It represented a difficult balancing of protecting the community from an alleged violent criminal and ensuring the integrity of the court subpoena process of a critical witness."

The teen is one of two reported victims in the case against Frank William Rackley Sr., 37, who is scheduled for trial Monday. She was scheduled to testify against Rackley at his preliminary hearing and then at his trial, originally set for Feb. 28. She failed to appear for either session. She was abducted last year from a light-rail station and then driven away and raped by Rackley, according to the criminal complaint. She is reportedly terrified to face Rackley. The judge told the girl, "I am truly sorry for all that you have been through. I hope that you have been strengthened by the outpouring of community support and concern for you. You have demonstrated great courage for a young woman and may you continue to do so in the upcoming trial of Mr. Rackley."

Texas Victim Compensation Fund Due to Run Out of Money Next Year

The multimillion-dollar Texas fund that compensates crime victims is on track to run out of money next year, reports the Austin American-Statesman. Officials who oversee the Crime Victim Compensation Fund said it faces a "serious shortfall" in September 2013 because of declining revenue and will be unable to pay for services to victims. Created in 1979, the account reimburses violent crime victims for expenses not covered by insurance or restitution.

It has been funded mainly through fines and court fees paid by lawbreakers across Texas — and reached its high point in 2005, when crime victims were paid $85 million. The problem: Legislative leaders, facing a severe budget crunch last year, raided the fund to pay for victim services programs provided by agencies and nonprofit organizations that had previously been paid for from the state's general fund. If the fund pays only victims, and stops paying for grants to victim services groups, it could satisfy all victim claims. That could decimate dozens of victim services programs across the state that have come to rely on the fund — to the tune of more than $36 million last year alone.

Maine Man's "Victim Offender Dialogue" Helps Survivors be Heard

Boat builder Jon Wilson of Maine runs Victim Offender Dialogue, which lets agonized victims or their surviving loved ones do something the justice system rarely lets them do: talk with the wrongdoer, the Christian Science Monitor reports. "I believe that the process of giving voice is therapeutic," says Wilson, who is not a professional therapist. "When a survivor is able to give full voice to their feelings, they suddenly feel heard in a way they never could have in any other context."

The program brings together victims, or their surviving loved ones, and their imprisoned offenders to discuss the acts that bind them: domestic violence, rapes, and killings. The dialogue happens in a secure setting at the inmate's prison. It's the survivor's day, Wilson says, their time to ask, to describe their loss, to speak with measured anger – whatever they want. Convicts listen, answer, sometimes try to explain. "Everything I do is about enabling the survivor to be heard and preparing the offender to respond in a way that's more substantial than 'I can't explain it.' " Through his nonprofit group, JUST Alternatives, Wilson has worked with clients in Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Texas, Virginia, and Vermont.

When Crime Pays

By Laura Amico

The DOJ and some powerful senators are squaring off over a proposal to expand the Crime Victims Fund. 

Some Victim Families Oppose Life Without Parole for Juveniles

Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments about the fate of 2,500 offenders who were sentenced as teenagers to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Seventy-nine of them were 13 or 14 when they committed their crimes. Many prosecutors and family members of victims supported he sentences. In a cafeteria near the Supreme Court, NPR reports, families of teenagers who committed horrible crimes got together with the families of victims.

One man's mother had been killed by four teenage girls. Another man's son was killed by a teenage boy. Yet all of them want the court to find life without parole for juveniles unconstitutional. It's not a group you often hear about. Many said they frequently are unwilling to share their feelings about the issue because they have been accused of not missing their loved ones enough. On this day, there was enough sorrow in the room to fill an afternoon — but also enough forgiveness. NPR tells some of their stories.

The Role of Victims in Plea Bargaining

By Robin L. Barton

On Dec. 3, 2008, Laura Garza, a 25-year-old aspiring dancer, left a Manhattan night club with Michael Mele, a 26-year-old registered sex offender, and disappeared...

The "Amazing, Unsung Work" of TX Police Crime Victim Unit

The Arlington, Tx., Police Department's victim services unit the largest of its kind in North Texas, dwarfing its counterparts in Dallas and Ft. Worth, reports the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. The Arlington unit consoles and advises people traumatized by everything from headline-grabbing murders to garage break-ins.

With 10 paid staffers, eight college interns -- several from the University of Texas at Arlington School of Social Work -- and three volunteers, it aided 13,043 people last year. Police spokeswoman Tiara Richard says it "does amazing, unsung work. It's a very, very tough job, but they are good at it." It was honored in 2009 by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Coordinator Derrelynn Perryman, a licensed social worker, has been with the unit for 17 years. She views her team as a necessity, not an afterthought, for the Police Department: "I think [the public] should expect nothing less than what we do."

TX Woman Wins $20 Million For Landlord Not Warning Of Rape Risk

A Houston jury awarded $20 million in damages yesterday to a rape victim who sued her apartment complex for failing to notify residents about previous sexual attacks on the property, the Houston Chronicle reports. The woman lwas raped and sodomized for more than 10 hours at a west Houston complex in 2009. She charged that complex officials knew about a break-in next door to the woman's unit a few weeks before her ordeal in which a man tried to rape that resident and failed to notify other tenants about a sexual predator.

The woman renewed her lease shortly after the earlier incident without being told about its severity, said her lawyer, Troy Chandler. After a weeklong trial, the jury awarded $7 million for physical pain and mental anguish, $5 million for future mental anguish and $8 million for conduct forbidden by the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Police, on notice about a possible serial rapist, arrested Darryl Martin shortly after the woman's attacker fled and she called 911. Martin, now 24, pleaded guilty to sexual assault and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

"We Have a Cultural Blind Spot" About Male Rape Problem--Expert

Even years after the disclosure of the still-unfolding child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church and the arrest of a former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach accused of sexually abusing boys, male rape victimization it is rarely discussed — virtually taboo, experts say, because of societal notions about masculinity and the idea that men are invulnerable and can take care of themselves, says the New York Times. “We have a cultural blind spot about this,” said David Lisak, a clinical psychologist who has done research on interpersonal violence and sexual abuse and is a founder of 1in6, an organization that offers information and services to men who had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences as children.

Until just a few weeks ago, national crime statistics on rape included only assaults against women and girls committed by men under a narrow set of circumstances. Now they will also include male victims. One Justice Department report found that 3 percent of men, or one in 33, had been raped. Some experts believe that one in six men have experienced unwanted sexual contact of some kind as minors. Male rape victims "have high rates of P.T.S.D. and depression — but the majority don’t get help,” said Dr. Saba Masho, the lead author of a Virginia study on the subject and an associate professor of epidemiology and community health at Virginia Commonwealth University.

New Orleans Chief Chided For Rap Sheet Details on Murder Victims

New Orleans Times-Picayune columnist James Gill assails Police Chief Ronal Serpas' policy of including rap sheet details of any homicide victim who had one. The aim, Serpas says, is to give the public "a broader perspective of events." Says Gill: "A broader perspective means understanding that it's your own damn fault if you get shot around here." It turns out that 64 percent of victims do have a record. To imply that a victim had it coming, as Serpas' policy appears to do, is a sentiment more appropriate to a mafia don than a police chief, Gill charges.

It can't be true, the columnist maintains, that 128 people deserved to have their names dragged through the mud last year before their deaths had even been investigated. Many of them had not even been convicted; a lousy arrest, even an ancient one, is enough to warrant a posthumous slur from the police department. Certainly, as Serpas pointed out, "criminal records predict victimization," and the stats do not mean New Orleans is dangerous for the law-abiding. "I don't think arrests are irrelevant," Serpas says. Serpas knows, although he might not admit it, that young black men are often hauled off on a flimsy pretext, Gill says.

Bullying in Schools

Bullying can stop victims from learning in school, authors conclude in a recent study by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Nearly 1/5 of U.S. Women Have Been Sex Assault Victims

Nearly one-fifth of U.S. women have been the victim of a sexual assault at some time in their lives, says a survey by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported by the Washington Post. One in four has been the victim of severe physical violence by a boyfriend or husband, according to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey.

The survey found that one in six has experienced a stalking that made her very fearful or believed that someone close to her would be harmed or killed. The survey showed that about one man in seven has experienced severe physical violence by an intimate partner at some point in his life, and one in 19 has experienced a stalking at some point. Oon average, 24 people are victims of rape, physical violence or stalking every minute. In a year, that translates to more than 12 million women and men. More than 1 million women reported being the victims of a rape or an attempted rape in the 12 months preceding the survey.

A New Paradigm for Public Safety

A new report seeks to pave a path to give victims of crime a greater voice in criminal justice policymaking.