CRJU 301 Victim Advocacy JMU Terrell

Criminal Justice Sytem

JDR/GDC District Courts -> Circuit Court -> Court of Appeals

Victim

One who has suffered physical, psychological, or economic harm as a direct result of the commission of a crime

*NOT one who commits a crime against a victim

Primary victime

Injured or dies from:

- Having a crime committed against them

- Trying to have someone arrested

- Trying to prevent a crime

- Trying to protect a victim

Secondary victims

Involved in or at a crime scene:

- Injured from witnessing a crime

- Injured from becoming aware of a crime

- Parent or guardian of a primary juvenile victim

Victim Advocate

Professionals trained to assist and support crime victims

Victim advocate services

- emotional support

- victim rights

- courtroom education

- safety planning

-financial assistance

- crime prevention

- relocation

- referrals

- court escorts

Victim needs

- support

- communication

- resources

- security

- companionship

- a plan for the future

Crime Victims' Rights Act of 2004

guarantees victims the right to be present and heard at various stages in the criminal justice system

VOCA

treat victims with dignity, respect, and sensitivity

Why would you want to become a victim advocate?

- desire to help others

- participate in crisis intervention

- provide the community with resources

- power in numbers

- aiming to help victims avoid similar situations

- long term remedies

Quality Victim Advocacy

QUALITY OVER QUANTITY!

- focus on victim experience, not # of cases

- ensure security and confidence

- ensure proper services and design

- personal commitment to excellence

- DO NO HARM

Program Needs

"ensure victims find closure through the least harmful means possible by offering support and resources to the best of our ability"

- strategies to achieve goals

- ability to understand unique core victim needs

- measure success indicators

Quality Indicators

1. Access

2. Structure

3. Process

4. Outcomes (safety, healing, justice, restitution)

Barriers to brining quality to the victim experience

- Financial Barriers

- Meeting times are not convenient

- court times are not convenient

- no transportation

- victim choices

- lack of communication

- lack of networking

- out of date resources

- disorganization

Remedies to barriers

- research funding resources

- participate in task forces

- research changes in legislation

- increase flexibility

- communicate victim availability

- conduct needs assessments

Court Preparation Timeline

1. Initial contact

2. Phone call/ briefing

3. cour preparation

4. Continued communication & disposition input

5. Victim impact statements

6. Prisoner release notification

7. ongoing support

Measuring Outcomes goals

Overarching goal is to IMPROVE THE VICTIMS LIFE

Underlying goal is that the program must operate with:

- Quality structure

- quality access

- quality process

Achievement: VICTIMS MUST EXPERIENCE POSITIVE OUTCOMES

Measuring Outcomes steps

1. Identify victim needs

2. Identify positive outcomes and implementation mechanisms

- implementation mechanisms

3. measure outcomes

- federal funding guidelines

Traditional measures

output based

outcome measures

quality based

Logic models address

- organizational issues

- environmental issues

- program issues

- administrative issues

Logic models 7-step process

- improve condition/alleviate crisis

-give new knowledge

- enhance insight

- change attitude

- increase skill

- modify behavior

- alter status

Outcomes

Initial

- short term

Intermediate

- building blocks

Long term

- improves their lives as a whole

- future oriented

Input factors of logic models

1. Identify victims desired outcomes

2. Identify best fitting services

3. determine output level

4. Determine how to best implement services

Picture of logic model

Theory Approach Model

- how and why your program will work

- great for grant proposals

- look at the "big picture"

Outcome Approach Model

-focus on initial program goals

-reflect plans to connect resources to results

-focus on program expectations

Activities Approach Model

- specifically how you will implement processes

- plans out activities using a timeline

- program monitoring and management

- details specific steps

Helpful hints for logic models

- create a good outcome statement

- identify stakeholders

- know strengths/weaknesses

- create reasonable time frames

- make outcomes measurable

- make outcomes long-lasting

- represent common victim needs

- reflect program values and priorities

barriers to outcome logic models

- victim related

- crime related

- system related

- program related

- environment related

Indicator

milestone on the road to a destination

measure

the actual destination

Choosing Indicators

is it:

- valuable

- cost effective

- specific

- representative

- acceptable

- significant

- unambiguous

- sensitive

- timely

- unbiased

Numerical Indicators

- number

- percentage

- amount

- rating

How to tell if a victim is succeeding

- reactions and feelings

- learning and gaining new knowledge

- positive changes in skills

- effectiveness of improved performance

Outcome Data Sources

The location where the information about the victim resides

- records of cases and data files

- individual victims, families and peers

- Surveys and questionnaires

- in person interviews

- phone interviews

- physical and environmental conditions

victim recidivism

- Chronic tendency toward repetition of criminal or antisocial behavior patterns

- definition more criminal based

Revictimization

- repeatedly treating someone unfairly or making them feel like they are in a bad position

- "victimization occurring at different points in time"

- does not place blame on victims

- definition more victim based

mediating factors of victim recidivism

- Decreased awareness of danger - Avoidance of coping with negative emotions

- Believe pain, coercion, trauma are normal in sexual or domestic

violence encounters

- Higher tolerance threshold

- Can involve or lead to:

- Adult sexual assault

- Intimate/domestic partner violence

- Mental issues

- Health problems

*Can sometimes result from oppression or homelessness

Victim Recidivism: Solutions

- early education

- hold local seminars

- community networking

- task forces

Internal Outcome Uses

enhancing your staff and program within to improve victim's lives which aligns program facets to victims needs

- train staff and volunteers

- staff retention due to meeting program needs successfully

External Outcome Uses

utilizing program success to appeal to outside factor to improve victim's lives

1.) Identify, focus, & enhance stakeholders

2.) Reaching previously unreached victims & referrals

3.) Draw in an interest in funding

4.) Publicize results to enhance program image

5.) Provide resources for education & prevention

Successful Directors

- Have a clear mission statement with ACHIEVABLE goals and objectives

- Monitor changes & trends (TRAINING!)

- Consistently monitor & adapt operations

- Ensure efficiency & patience

- Keep accurate records

- Ensure that program goals align with victim outcomes

- Manage financial issues

-Evaluate cuts, and make them SMALL

Victim-Outcome Based Program: Management

1. planning

2. implementation

3. monitoring and measuring

4. evaluation and reporting

Moral Wages

"The positive feelings and sense of satisfaction that come with seeing oneself as a caring and compassionate person" - K. Kolb

looking-glass self

"seeing ourselves through others eyes" - C.H. Cooley

SAFE Program

Stopping Abuse In Family Environments

-Roots in feminist movement

-Focus on domestic and sexual abuse

-Takes into account diversity issues and gender inequality

Coordinated Community Response

Educate the public and coordinate intervention programs to reform abusers

- focus on individualism and personal growth to eliminate future issues

Empowerment Philosophy

Returning power and control to victims

- explore safety options

- learn to work with criminal justice system productively

- victims need to "own" their recovery

- it's a process, not an outcome

Counselor v. Advocate

Counselor:

- Specialized training in mental health / Professional degrees

- Regimented schedule

- Assist with coping mechanisms and healing

- Long-term mental well-being

Advocate:

- Specialized training in working with victims, but not all have professional degrees

- Look for immediate remedies while victims are "in crisis" (i.e. shelter, safety plans, protective orders)

- No routine schedule / Long hours

- Short-term remedies and long-term referrals

- Liaison between victim and criminal justice system

Moral Dirty Work

Many avoid advocacy jobs due to lingering mental effects

- Leave psychological wounds

- May involve a social stigma

- Workers need "intrinsic" reward to make it worth it

Moral Dirty Work Issues

- you can never really turn away a victim

- watch victims go through growing pains of self sufficiency

- lack of victim appreciation

Moral Dirty Work Remedies

- Feel good about work = Manage stress & fatigue

- Look "inside yourself" to manage the outside world

- Focus on intrinsic rewards

- Look "inside" victim AND abuser

- Strategies to reduce recidivism

Lower sympathy

- usually have credentials

- work for higher pay

- practical outcomes

- lower focus on moral wages

- more finite job terms

Higher sympathy

- do not always have credentials

- victim centered outcomes

- higher focus on moral wages

- Job never really ends

Empower

- "To give someone power and authority to do something - presumably something good."

- Concept arose from the Battered Women's Movement

- In advocacy terms: Giving a victim your time, resources, and encouragement to make positive decisions for themselves.

SAFE Empowerment Strategies

- Never tell abused woman what to do

- Better to listen, rather than lecture - Sympathize as opposed to criticize

- Support as opposed to compel ⮚ Try not to intervene unless absolutely necessary (Imminent

danger)

- "Steering"

- Keep empowerment practices broad / Handle case-by-case

- Consider abuse a "social" issue, not an "individual" issue

- Empowerment makes a clear distinction between SAFE

groups and other criminal justice entities

Empowerment strategies

- goal setting

- assessment

- inquiry

- analysis

- action

The Duluth Model of the 1980's

- Coordinated Community Response (CCR) to end

domestic violence

- Maintain victim safety & make abusers accountable for their actions

- "Abuse is a systematic denial of power and control over another person's life and well-being that only sometimes takes the form of physical violence"

The Duluth Model steps

1) Remove blame from victim and make abuser accountable

2) Shared policies/procedures to maintain victim safety and abuser accountability

3) Takes into account survivors when creating policies

4) Based on idea that battering is a way for men to gain control over their partner and change society's view to support this concept

5) Offers chances for offenders to change their ways through court-ordered programs

6) Ongoing communication between law enforcement courts, victims, and the community to close gaps

Applying and Defending Empowerment

- be open minded

- let victims make their own decisions

- be clear about what constitutes abuse

- use your own judgement regarding how much "advice" to give victims

Steering

"Influencing clients just enough to nudge them off a potentially hazardous path" - K. Kolb

1) Planting seeds of doubt

2) Speculating about a bright future

3) Rely on authority of others

Types of difficult clients

1. clients who lie

2. clients who return to there abusers

3. clients who break the rules

4. clients who lash out at staff members

5. clients who do not come back

Setting limits

- Patience is not infinite. We are all human.

- Setting limits is a good thing:

- Not ethical to give services that do not help or enable bad reactions

- Advocates accused of being "too biased" when a victim lies

- May be better for greater good (i.e. Funding) to disprove advocacy stigmas

- Advocates cannot put themselves at risk

- Cutting off difficult clients = Reserves sanctity of sympathy

Why Sympathy Wanes

1. ideal victim stereotype

2. Sociological Perspectives

Legal work: victims

Pro's:

- Finite solutions to cases

- offender accountability

Con's:

- not always closure for victims

- reduction of victim power and control

- advocates have little control

- court not pleasant

Legal work: advocates

Pro's:

- Advocates can show skills in professional setting

- Gives "a chance to win"

- Validation of victim plights

- Immediate results

Con's:

- Advocates have little control or say

- Court results do not always mean victim healing

- Considered "gender work" (not valued by outsiders)

- Lower salaries due to "gender work" stigma

Outcomes of Advocacy in Legal Work

- Advocates intertwined into the legal system

- Change in organizational philosophies

- Gives court personnel a victim-based view

Why do advocates enjoy legal work?

- Fulfills desire to help others (moral wages)

- Desire to become respected in court advocacy

- Desire to hold abusers accountable for actions

Safety and Healing Protocols

1. Safety from abusers

2. Safety from re-victimization

3. Availability of resources

Tenets of Successful Advocacy

1.) Educate yourself about criminal justice system

2.) Participate in community advocacy (proactive)

3.) Utilize coordinated community response

4.) Information exchange with providers/stakeholders

5.) Train (A LOT!)

6.) Educate yourself about theoretical approaches

7.) Advocate for changes in the system

8.) Address historical system mistrust

9.) Work outside of clinical (court) walls

10.) Conduct program evaluations

The need for men in advocacy

- Combats the "man hater" stereotype

- Takes away from "overly biased" stigma of

being a female advocate

- Not all victims are female

- Male victims may prefer male advocates

- Males can be political allies

- Financial resources

Males in Advocacy Pro's

- Attends to the needs of both genders

- Provides different perspectives

- Gives victims comfort options

- Males can take little amount of caring and make big differences

Males in Advocacy Con's

- May invite risk into shelters

i.e. DV and sexual assault cases

- May take away women's empowerment opportunities

- May be ridiculed by "male" community"

- May get more praise than warranted

- May show that women's organizations need men to

succeed

Males in Advocacy - Litmus Test

1.) Determine if they are an abuser themselves

- Question random contact

- Look into background (NETWORK!)

2.) Question intentions

3.) Screen for duplicative contact 4.) Verbalize interest in DV and sexual assault

- Explore knowledge-base

What to look for in male advocates

- exclude those ONLY interested in violent and intimidating behavior

- exclude "macho" men

- need to empower victims without abuser lecturing

- goal of improving victims lives

- interested in moral wages

Remedying Stereotypes

- Acknowledge and celebrate successes

- Reward their presence and good work

- "Progressive Merit Badges"

- Symbolic credit

- Higher moral wage

- Understand how abuse results from patriarchal society, and raise awareness to change viewpoints

secondary traumatic stress (STS)

"The natural consequent behaviors and emotions resulting from knowing about a traumatizing event experienced by a significant other—the stress resulting from helping or wanting to help a traumatized or suffering person"

What kind of remedies may decrease this stress?

- maintaining good work relationships

- quality supervision

- access to power

Mitigating factors of STS

Individual Contributors:

1.) Degree of exposure

- Caseload

- Type of trauma

- # of hours devoted to clients

2.) Personal trauma history

Workplace Contributors:

1.) Social support

2.) Clinical supervision

3.) Access to power

- "Freedom to act"

Burnout

"The condition of someone who has become very physically and emotionally tired after doing a difficult job for a long time"

Chronic Responsibility Syndrome

"People who 'believe they're responsible for everything because they alone are the only ones who can do it"

Compassion Fatigue

A syndrome resulting from a combination of secondary traumatic stress and burnout

Emotional Exhaustion

When emotional resources

become depleted by the constant needs, demands, and expectations of stakeholders

Depersonalization (cynicism)

Cynical, negative, or excessively detached responses to stakeholders and their situations

Advocate burnout symptoms

- Hypercritical, hypersensitive & irritable

- Hard to go to work

- Disillusion

- Use of unhealthy remedies

- Lack of energy & low self-esteem - Lack of satisfaction & emotional withdrawal

- Change in sleep habits

- Health issues & mental instability - Difficulty focusing & making decisions

Advocate burnout causes

1. Vicarious trauma

2. Feeling misunderstood or under appreciated

3. Pressure

4. Lack of control

Advocate Burnout Solutions

- WORK-LIFE BALANCE!!!!

- Look at past victories to make sense of current issues

- Make the most of your resources

- Think outside of the box to find solutions i.e. "steering, etc.

- Rely on support of colleagues

- Remain open-minded

- Manage emotions and coping skills (recognize warning signs)

- Communicate with supervisors about stressors

- Learn to say "no"

- Learn to train and delegate to others

Advocate Burnout Solutions cont.

- Stop the practice of privileging men

- Create advocate credentials

- Certificates & degrees

- Embrace victim-empowerment

- Use to manage emotions

- Give "steering" directions

- Rely on seasoned staff to reason with overly-stressed advocates

and difficult clients

- Acknowledge micro-hierarchy with clients

- Be directive

- Keep some emotions to yourself