CCJ-3666 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Formal System, Victims Family, Compassion Fatigue
15 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
Staring in the mid 1970s, the federal government provided funding for vicim-witness assistance programs housed in prosecutor oices. Unfortunately, the iniial federal funding started to dry up. The local eforts were not very adept at becoming insituionalized as permanently funded ixtures within local criminal jusice budgets. Luckily the poliical landscape underwent signiicant changes with the release of the report from the presidents task force on vicims of crime. The presidents task force held public hearings and securing tesimony. The task force received accounts of how the criminal jusice system mishandled vicims and witnesses. Most vicim-witness assistance programs ofer a very similar core of services: emergency services, counseling, advocacy, claims assistance, court related services, post-sentencing services, system-wide services. Vicim-witness projects, keep staisics to track their performance and to jusify their coninued existence. What is they key to program success: one possible explanaion is that vicims and witnesses seek only humane treatment and giving them that will increase program efeciveness.
