JOHN DUSSICH: During my doctoral work, I had a very interesting job. It was to be what's called a Criminal Justice Planner, and my specialty was corrections. I was comparing what offenders were getting compared to what victims were getting, and victims were not getting anything. I thought that was unfair, and I wrote down a few notes on a flight from Miami to Tallahassee. By the time I landed, I had roughed out what became the victim ombudsman/victim advocate concept. A lot of people were looking for something that had to do with providing services, not just talking about it theoretically. Florida had the wherewithal to fund those initial projects, and pretty soon, uh, the idea spread throughout the United States.
In 1976, I started thinking about creating a national organization. The National Organization of Victim Assistance became the vehicle by which the concept the original simplistic concept of victim advocacy could be elaborated on, and improved upon, and tried in different settings. And that's as it should be. We want victims to o have a place at the table of justice like the offenders. We wanted victims to be given respect and dignity, uh, as individuals, as human beings. The idea of a World Society of Victimology came into being, and I was asked to serve as the first Founding Secretary General. So, those of us who were, in the early days promoters of the original concepts of helping victims, now became teachers to other countries.
CHADLEY JAMES: A lot of people benefit from Dr. Dussich's work. He's always trying to engage with people in the community, doing volunteering work and educating people wherever he goes.
JOHN DUSSICH: Do you remember the big R? Successive generations of victim service providers stand on the shoulders of the people who came up with the earlier ideas.
The sample that we picked, in this case 10,000 families...
It is part of my responsibility as a teacher and a researcher to point to those things that are available to become more effective, to bring the state of the art to a higher level of efficiency and effectiveness.
