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2004
National Crime Victims' Rights Week The honorees received special recognition during the awards ceremony hosted April 22, 2004, by the Office for Victims of Crime to honor victim advocates, organizations, and programs in the field of victim services.
In some of the photos provided, the award recipients are accompanied by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Assistant Attorney General Deborah J. Daniels from the Office of Justice Programs, and OVC Director John W. Gillis. To view more details, click on a photo for an enlarged view National Crime Victim Service Awards
Lynn Shiner On Christmas morning 1994, Lynn Shiner drove to the home of her ex-husband to pick up her two children, 8-year-old David and 10-year-old Jennifer. She arrived to find all three dead. Her ex-husband had taken his own life after stabbing his son and daughter. Following their burials, Ms. Shiner learned that shortly before the murders her ex-husband had been arrested for stalking a female disc jockey. Fearing for her own safety and for the safety of his children, the woman asked police to notify Ms. Shiner of his actions, but no one did. Unaware of his behavior, Ms. Shiner complied with the custody order granting him visitation with the children on Christmas Eve. Four weeks after the murders, Ms. Shiner worked with the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Widener University School of Law to design a bill that could have protected her children. The "Jen and Dave Law," enacted in 1996, grants a parent who is involved in a custody case the right to access information about criminal charges filed against the other parent. The law also permits that information to be used in custody decisions. Later that year, Ms. Shiner was appointed by Governor Tom Ridge to Pennsylvania's Victims' Services Advisory Committee, where she turned her attention to the Pennsylvania Crime Victim Compensation Program. The program's predecessor agency had been poorly managed and unresponsive to victims. Soon after her appointment, Ms. Shiner was named manager of the program and, in that role, she eliminated a backlog of more than 1,100 claims and reduced the time needed to process claims from 26 weeks to 8 weeks. Her success in streamlining the program involved an automated information system that she helped design and that was named by program staff in honor of her son—Dependable Access for Victimization Expenses (DAVE). She also created a direct service unit within the program and instituted consultation sessions for victims whose claims are denied, with the goal of ensuring that victims are treated with the dignity and respect. At the same time, Ms. Shiner began the Jen and Dave Memorial Fund. The fund has raised more than $160,000 for state and local victim services through an annual golf tournament and silent auction. Ms. Shiner continues to speak publicly about her pain and has made a special effort to help reporters understand the impact of their work on victims.
SafePlace SafePlace is the primary provider of direct and comprehensive services to women, children, and men who are victimized by rape, sexual abuse, and domestic violence in the Austin/Travis County, Texas, community. For almost three decades, SafePlace and its predecessor organizations have provided comprehensive intervention and prevention services to break the cycle of violence. Services range from a 24-hour hotline and emergency shelter and hospital accompaniment for rape survivors to longer term services such as counseling, legal advocacy, and transitional housing. SafePlace also offers outreach, education, and prevention programs to help community members better identify and address sexual and domestic violence issues. In 1996, it established its Disability Services ASAP Program to promote healthy and violence-free relationships for children, youth, and adults with any type of disability. Among the first programs in the Nation to offer both abuse prevention and crisis intervention services, it provides assistance to individuals with cognitive, physical, sensory, speech, and psychiatric disabilities. The program has provided prevention education to more than 15,000 children and adults, and its training curriculum has been sold in more than 30 states and 4 countries. Recently, it was awarded U.S. Department of Justice funding to set up 10 local sites to provide services to victims with disabilities. SafePlace also provides school-based services through its Expect Respect Program, which includes a bullying prevention program for students and staff at area elementary schools and training for secondary school staff on how to promote safe and healthy youth relationships. Its BabySafe Program provides support services to pregnant battered women, as well as training for professionals on domestic violence, pregnancy, and related issues. A recently established men's outreach and education project engages boys and young men in the work to end violence against women.
Alan Ping-Lun Lai Alan Lai acts as a liaison between the international community in Seattle, Washington, and the law enforcement and criminal justice agencies that serve it. More than 50 languages, most of them various dialects of Chinese, are spoken in the Chinatown/International District, and many of the immigrants who live there are distrustful of law enforcement. Mr. Lai has played a critical role in helping that area's victims overcome cultural barriers that prevent them from seeking the help they need, and his service has been invaluable in helping law enforcement officials gain access to this closed community, where only a fraction of crimes are believed to be reported. Several cases illustrate his value to both victims and the criminal justice system. In 1995, Mr. Lai served as an interpreter during a hostage crisis in which two young Chinese males and one young Chinese female were kidnapped from their foster home by a New York street gang with ties to gangsters from China. The victims were beaten and tortured during the 9 days they were held captive; they were rescued on the day they were told they would be executed. The federal investigation of the incident revealed a connection between the Seattle kidnappings and another kidnapping in New York in which a male victim was shot in the head and a female victim was raped and killed. Fearing retaliation, and suspicious of the criminal justice system, the victims were reluctant to cooperate with investigators. Mr. Lai won their trust, and their participation resulted in the conviction of five defendants, all of whom received lengthy prison sentences. In 2002, Mr. Lai provided both interpretation and support services to victims in a human trafficking case. Chinese Snake Head gangsters had smuggled 18 people into Seattle, three of whom died enroute. Mr. Lai organized counseling for the survivors, arranged for a memorial service for the dead victims, and coordinated a difficult negotiation with the Chinese consulate to return the remains of the deceased to China. Also that year, he provided interpretation and relocation assistance to young victims who were trafficked into the United States as part of an elaborate prostitution ring. In addition, he mediated a session with local and federal investigators and victims of a travel agency scam that helped close down the agency.
IdentityTheft ResourceCenter Founded in 1999 by a victim of identity theft and her husband, the Identity Theft Resource Center serves as an information repository and direct services program for victims, consumers, businesses, governmental agencies, law enforcement, legislators, and the media. The small staff—two full-time and two part-time employees—and the center's pool of volunteers receive 200-250 telephone calls and e-mails from victims per week, and the center's Web site averages 45,000-60,000 visits per month. Its resources include a score of self-help guides, verified scam alerts, and information for law enforcement, businesses, the media, and consumers. It also responds to about 30 interviews each month from local and national media. The center has served as a technical advisor to state and federal legislators and governmental agencies, and its staff have testified at numerous state and federal legislative and governmental hearings. Among its legislative advocacy successes are California laws that give victims access to credit application and account information on accounts opened in their names, outlaw information trafficking, and clear victims' records more rapidly and effectively. An education and outreach component advises and trains law enforcement officials, and a corporate awareness program includes a self-assessment and remediation handbook for businesses. The center has participated in a number of state and federal task forces, including those established by the Federal Trade Commission, the Social Security Administration, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The center serves as a regular advisor to the California Office of Privacy Protection. The center's trained volunteers, many of them victims themselves, enable it to provide emotional support as well as information to identify theft victims.
Susan Schechter (posthumous) A pioneer of the battered women's movement, Susan Schechter helped change the way criminal justice and social service agencies respond to violence against women and children. Susan gained national recognition in 1982 through her groundbreaking work, Women and Male Violence: The Visions and Struggles of the Battered Women's Movement, a chronicle of the early history of the domestic violence movement. Through her work and writing, she shined light on the intersecting problems of domestic violence, child abuse, poverty, and substance abuse. Ms. Schechter challenged the domestic violence and child welfare communities to work through their distrust of each other and find ways to collaborate on behalf of battered women and their children. She founded the first program in the country to address child abuse in homes affected by intimate violence. She coauthored Effective Intervention in Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment Cases: Guidelines for Policy and Practice, also called the "Green Book," which serves as a roadmap for developing programs that serve children and their mothers. As a clinical professor at the School of Social Work at the University of Iowa, Ms. Schechter was widely published and in great demand as a speaker. She won the National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators Award for Leadership in Public Child Welfare in 2003, among other honors, and was a member of the National Advisory Council on Violence Against Women. Susan died on February 3 of endometrial cancer. She is survived by her husband, Allen Steinberg, and their son Zachary.
Carroll Ann Ellis As Director of the Fairfax County Police Department, Victim Services Division, Carroll Ellis serves victims in four jurisdictions. Services provided under her direction include crisis intervention, counseling, support groups, court advocacy and escort, educational programs for schools and community groups, and witness preparation for court. Her responsibilities include developing special programs to meet the specific needs of victims, making policy, and providing training and technical assistance. Ms. Ellis founded the first inhouse police shelter for domestic violence and rape victims by facilitating the collaboration between law enforcement and practitioners in the participating communities. She provides communities with training and technical assistance on the impact of homicide on family members, and on state legislation and public policy issues. Ms. Ellis is an author and has served as a guest lecturer on the impact of homicide and other victim related issues. She also serves as a faculty member at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Academy, the National Victim Assistance Academy, Northern Virginia Community College, and other institutions. Ms. Ellis serves on many community boards and committees including the George Mason University Sexual Assault Coalition, the Fairfax County Domestic Violence Coalition, and the Fort Belvoir Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault Coalition. |
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