Shelby Kay Looper

Shelby Looper grew up in rural Daleville, Indiana, a small town with fewer than 1,700 residents. After graduating from Daleville High School in 2012, Ms. Looper attended Ball State University and majored in criminal justice and criminology. 

To fulfill her college graduation requirements, Ms. Looper interned at the Muncie Police Victim Advocates Office during the summer of 2016. During her internship Ms. Looper demonstrated a strong commitment to victims and leadership skills. Sensitive to the limitations of criminal justice systems in rural Indiana, Ms. Looper realized that rural, small-town police departments were not offering victims the services they needed to become survivors. 

Ms. Looper saw how crime victims were helped in Muncie, and she realized that the absence of victim services in small towns had far-reaching consequences. With the support of her supervisor and Muncie’s Chief of Police, Ms. Looper personally drove to the Daleville, Yorktown, Eaton, and Gaston Police Departments, introduced herself, and told them of the victim services offered through the Muncie Police Victim Advocates Office. These small, rural police departments welcomed her enthusiasm and invited her to educate police officers about the resources that were available to them. 

Ms. Looper was hired as a victim advocate in August 2016. While in this role, Ms. Looper saw a need to have a victim advocate on scene when police respond to domestic violence calls. She believed advocates were important to establish a relationship with victims and a plan to meet their needs. With the support of her supervisor and the Chief of Police, Ms. Looper established the Domestic Violence On-Call Program. 

On-scene victim advocates are instrumental to building stronger relationships between the police department and the community; police officers and victim advocates; and the community and the criminal justice system. In June 2017, Ms. Looper was made the acting director of the Muncie Police Victim Advocates Office, and one month later, she was named the Director. She considers her new leadership role an opportunity to refine the programs she initiated, facilitate office professionalism, and implement a self-care program for the office.