SUSAN HOWLEY: I've been working in the field since 1989. I've always wanted a career that made a difference, and I feel like I've been privileged to have that.
The National Victims Center hired a group of us to be legislative analysts and work with state-level advocates and policymakers who wanted to change their own victims' rights law. I became the policy director, working not only on state legislation, but federal policy. We spent a lot of time working both with victim advocates around the country and with Congress to convince them of the importance of constitutional protection for victims' rights.
I was the research geek at our office. We used to get requests from advocates who had no idea what the victims' rights were in their state. We used to print out their statutes and mail it to them. We were able to take our in-house database and turn that into VictimLaw, so that any interested advocate could find out what were the laws in their state and how could they improve; what did other states have?
...therefore proven for this type of use.
Over time, my career has gone in the direction of data analysis and evaluation. Victim advocates and the field need better research. We need to know more about the impact of crime. We need more evaluation of victim services. We would interview advocates who were already trying to bridge that gap in different parts of the victims' field.
OVC then funded a Center for Victim Research, which is where I've now landed. We're trying to find the best examples of what's out there, share that information, so people, when they're planning a new victim service, can think about, what does the research say that will help me be the best I can be here? I love the fact that we are helping other people make a difference for crime victims and survivors.
