Victim Advocate Research Paper

All the components of the criminal justice have the same goal in mind: preventing and fighting crime. Preventing and fighting crime also includes providing services for the victims of the crimes. Although the main focus on the criminal justice system is to arrest, prosecute and rehabilitate the criminal, many forget to focus on the victim. The National Organization for Victims Assistance was found in 1975 and is the oldest national group providing assistance to victims of crime and crisis. The Law enforcement community needs to ensure the safety of the victim before, during, and after a conviction. Many times the victims of crimes are forgotten or left out of the notification process when the criminal has been

It is said that 88 percent of women sexually assaulted on campus do not report. (Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation 2015). Four to five percent of victims report but not to the police, nine to ten percent thought police would not to anything to help, ten to fourteen percent did not want to get the culprit in to trouble, twelve to nineteen percent thought that it wasn’t important enough to turn in, twenty percent were afraid of reprisal, and twenty three to twenty six percent thought it to be a personal matter (RAINN). The percentage of sexual assault claims that turn out to be false range from two to eight percent. When people are focused on those small numbers they forget to keep in mind how majority of the cases that go reported for sexual assault, turn out to be true.Then there are the cases that do get reported, and with these brings along the perpetrators who rarely get serious punishments. The majority of them will not go to jail or prison.

Millions of Americans are victims of crime every year. Victims of crimes have rights which entitle them to special benefits and help as a result of a crime.

The Hunting Ground was a very emotional video that highlights a very important issue in our country that most people are not aware of. When it comes to sexual violence, college campuses are more focused on protecting the attacker rather than the victim. What shocked me the most in this film was that most of the faculty members the victims went to seek help from were females, yet the victims were still blamed for their rape. One administrator from UNC at Chapel Hill told a victim “rape is like a football game” meaning that if you look back to that day, what would you have done differently to prevent the rape. Victims who report rapes to university faculties are often questioned about the clothes they wore that day, how much alcohol they had to drink if they said no to the perpetrator, how many times did they said no, etc. Ryan Clifford, a male victim at the University of California, Davis rather than being helped, he was suggested by a faculty member to drop out of school until the situation “blows over.”

In the past couple of years there has been a rise of sexual assaults across college campuses. While sexual assaults have typically been greatly under-reported, we have started to see victims all across America take a stand and demand change and justice. “Five decades of research on higher education campuses in the United States have revealed that approximately 20% to 25% of women will experience attempted or completed rape during their college career” (Franklin et al., 2016). There needs to be a improvement in regards to having lower campus assaults rates so that female students can walk alone across campus, are no longer considered easy targets, or be afraid of their fellow peers. The focus of this paper will be to identify potential victims, explain under reporting, identify the typical type of offender, and identify what type of education needs to be taught.

On college campuses in the United States, sexual assault and rape are significant public and social health issues so colleges need to punish the abusers and support the victims. Women are primarily the victims of rape whereas men are usually the ones to attempt any type of sexual assault.. The vast majority of women are sexually assaulted by men with whom they are acquainted. Women are far less likely to report a rape or assault when they know their assailant, thus instance of sexual assaults are greatly under-reported. This essay examines a number of reasons why women fail to report an assault to formal support agencies and examines some of the ways in which social services agencies can reach women

“One in five women are sexually assaulted while in college” (Not Alone, 2014). In our class of twenty women that means that possibly five women have been sexually assaulted. Out of the five women that I stated could have been sexually assaulted they may have known the perpetrator and often will not report what has happened. According to the spring count of students completed by West Chester University, 9,211 of those students were females (“Headcount Enrollment”, 2014). If I go by the statistic mentioned earlier that one in five women is assaulted that would mean that 1,842 women have been sexually assaulted while enrolled at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Out of 1,842 possible assaults only four were reported last year. Two of which the victims knew prior to the assault. Rankin and Associates consulting conducted a Climate Assessment on West Chester University in September of 2010, a section of the results focused on sexual assault on students. According to the report seven people who reported a sexual assault to the university described their reactions to the universities response. Two students shared the way they felt the response was inappropriate or poor. One described that they felt the suspension for one semester was not an appropriate response to an admitted rape, that public safety lost the victims statement, judicial affairs painted the victim offender as innocent, and that the registrar protected the offender putting the victim in harm’s way and everyone

I am a campus sexual assault response advocate (SARA) through a partnership between Simpson College and Crisis Intervention Services (CIS). After attending 30 hours of training I have Victim Counselor Privilege as found in the Iowa Code 915.20A. SARA provides 24/7 advocacy services on the Simpson College campus, when classes are in session, to anyone in need of support and/or assistance due to sexual assault. The goal of SARA is to educate and assist members of the Simpson community in dealing with sexual assault and sexual responsibility. SARA is also a student-run organization which provides educational programming designed to educate the campus about issues related to dating violence, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and being conscientious

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.

In the article “Athletic club weekend turns into a nightmare for college freshman” by Carol smith and Lee Van Der Voo, Emily Lorenzen shares her story of being a rape victim. Emily shares her account because she wants to help to prevent rape from happening to anyone else. After interviewing Emily the authors shared a statement expressing that “Emily lorenzen believes that if people hear her story, they will be more comfortable confronting the issue of sexual assault on campus. She wants more conversation, so that men get a clearer definition of rape, face stiffer penalties if they ignore it and administrators learn to reach out to women like her and show compassion. She especially wants bystanders to step up and protect people who are vulnerable.” Rape victims need support to not feel guilty or ashamed, and that is exactly what Emily and her father desire. On this topic, Shipman an influential contributor of the Spokane sexual assault

Despite having hundreds of sexual assault cases each year, most colleges take little action to resolve these cases. In fact, only 20% of female sexual assault survivors report cases, the rest believing that it was too personal to share, or that if they did, the police wouldn’t listen to them. If they did report, often times it was to the local police rather than the campus police in fear that they would be shamed or turned away by the universities.

Victims of sexual violence is the first population we will discuss. “On average, there are 321,500 victims (age 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault each year in the United States” (Rain.org, “Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics,” 2016, para. 1). Criminal justice professionals will encounter rape victims and sexual assault victims. Police officers have the duty of charging and arresting the perpetrator and getting the persons assaulted to safety. Victims of rape and sexual assault have to

The film I watched was called The Hunting Ground this film started off very interesting. It showed clips of students finding out for the first time they got accepted to the university of their choice. Most of the students screamed of shock and it was obvious they were thrilled. Then a couple girls get interviewed about their experience their first months at that school, almost all of them had the perfect grades and perfect lives. However, these interviews take a twist when many girls getting interviewed start telling the story of when they got raped, there was also about three guys that were victims of this too. The weird part of it all was that more than half of them got raped by a friend or someone they knew for a while. Many of the victims didn’t know how to handle what had happened to them. If they spoke to friends they could be judged, and speaking to their parents was even worse. After a while of keeping that secret in many decided to go talk to someone in their university office. In almost all of these cases, the person in the office starts questioning them about what they could of changed to avoid it etc. instead of helping them and taking care of this horrible problem. The people in the office ultimately say they will help, but several days pass and the victims don’t hear anything about them. The universities do it on purpose, the statistics show almost all universities never expel students for such thing. They do this to make their campus look safe and to not keep

d. SVC’s will empower victims by helping the victims understand the military justice process and aiding these victims with all legal assistance required for this particular case. This will be accomplished by providing effective and timely advice, being available to assist throughout the entire military justice process from the initial investigation to the final convening authority action not to mention providing the advocacy needed to assure all rights are afforded and fully realized by the victim.

The victim’s movement’s in the United States of America was as a result of the rising social consequences as from the 1960s that brought out the energies of an idealistic generation in that decade and the one that followed. In my opinion, the victim’s movement has not yet reached its full potential. This is because just like any other form of legislature or government; they still require continued advocacy and action. Moreover, there still some dangerous challenges they have to overcome before the victims can be very sure of a fair and compassionate response to their plight. For instance, some states have amended the constitution to address crime the victim’s rights legislation and the movement must ensure that any other state do the same and