Pamela Joyce Ferguson-Brey | Crime Victims Financial Restoration Award
Crime Victim Compensation Commission
Honolulu, Hawaii
Pamela Ferguson-Brey dedicates her professional life to implementing programs and initiatives that serve the rights and needs of crime victims. As the Executive Director of the Hawaii Crime Victim Compensation Commission, she actively collaborates with numerous public and private agencies in an effort to improve and enhance the overall delivery of crime victim services.
Ms. Ferguson-Brey works tirelessly to successfully implement the victim services component of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI) in Hawaii, a collaborative effort among the Governor, chief justice, key legislators, community stakeholders, and The Council of State Governments Justice Center. This initiative provides huge savings to the state while providing a standardized framework for offenders to pay restitution to crime victims.
Not only does this initiative provide revenue to the Commission for payments already made to crime victims, it also holds offenders accountable to the victims they harmed. In addition, the Hawaii JRI resulted in enhanced services for victims by providing funding for 22 new advocate positions: 15 county-based victim advocates; 2 advocates for a corrections-based victim services program; and 5 advocates for a restitution accountability program in the Commission.
Also, Ms. Ferguson-Brey’s collaboration with key legislators ensured the appropriation of $150,000, together with a $100,000 grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, to create a comprehensive computer database to track restitution orders, collections, and payments; and to support the establishment of a permanent statewide Automated Victim Notification System with a permanent dedicated funding source. Other legislative efforts ensured an increase in the amount of restitution payable by inmates from only 10 percent of just their inmate wages to 25 percent of all funds received by an incarcerated offender.
As a result of Ms. Ferguson-Brey’s efforts in support of crime victim services, Hawaii is now recognized as a national model for other states to follow in the development and implementation of their own similar JRIs.