Notes
1Office for Victims of Crime, 2006, "OVC Focus On... Victim Services in Rural Law Enforcement" (Web page), Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office for Victims of Crime.2National Sheriffs' Association, Updated 2001, First Response to Victims of Crime: A Handbook for Law Enforcement Officers on How To Approach and Help Elderly Victims, Victims of Sexual Assault, Child Victims, Victims of Domestic Violence, Victims of Alcohol-Related Driving Crashes, and Survivors of Homicide Victims, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office for Victims of Crime, iii.
3Parker, Susan, 2001, Establishing Victim Services Within a Law Enforcement Agency: The Austin Experience, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office for Victims of Crime, 1.
4Adapted from Parker, 1.
5American Prosecutors Research Institute, Updated 2007, Rural Victim Assistance: A Victim/Witness Guide for Rural Prosecutors, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office for Victims of Crime, 3. Although this sentence refers to prosecution-based victim services, it also can be applied to law enforcement-based victim services and other local victim service providers.
6Bulleted section adapted in part from: Lewis, Susan, 2003, Unspoken Crimes: Sexual Assault in Rural America, Enola, PA: National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 3–6. Littel, Kristin, 2007, Sexual Assault Response and Resource Teams (SARRT): A Guide for Rural and Remote Communities, On-Line Training Institute Course EVAW 11, Addy, WA: Ending Violence Against Women International, and Rural Victim Assistance: A Victim/Witness Guide for Rural Prosecutors, 3–4 and 7–11.
7Rural Victim Assistance: A Victim/Witness Guide for Rural Prosecutors, 3.
8Adapted from "Victim Services in Rural Law Enforcement (Cooperative Agreement)," Office for Victims of Crime FY 2002 Discretionary Grant Application Kit, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office for Victims of Crime.
9This paragraph was partially drawn from the unpublished final report to OVC on this grant project from the Alabama Attorney General's Office.
10In this document, the term "victim-centered" refers to practices that address the needs of crime victims related to law enforcement response. The following publications offer a further discussion of these needs: Victim Services and Law Enforcement: Next Steps, summary page, and What Do Victims Want? Recommendations from the 1999 IACP Summit on Victims of Crime, iii, both published by the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
11The 10 NSA sites and four Alabama sites were able to sustain their victim service efforts at some level after the grant ended. Two law enforcement agencies discontinued their victim service programs due to lack of funds to support staff positions. Resignations of key staff at another agency led to the discontinuation of its victim service program.