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2001 CRIME VICTIM SERVICE AWARDEES Susan Kelly-Dreiss For 25 years, Susan Kelly-Dreiss has worked to enact legal protections, implement innovative services and heighten public awareness on behalf of battered women and their children. Having grown up in a violent home, Ms. Kelly-Dreiss began her career in victim advocacy by helping to start a shelter for battered women in her hometown of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In 1976, she joined with a handful of other women to successfully lobby for passage of Pennsylvania's first domestic violence law. She also helped to develop a legislative strategy and lay the foundation for the nation's first domestic violence coalition, the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence (PCADV). As the Executive Director of PCADV since its founding, Ms. Kelly-Dreiss has overseen the growth of the network from nine community-based programs to 62 programs now operating throughout the state. In 1993, she was instrumental in securing federal funding to help PCADV establish the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence and to manage the National STOP (Services, Training, Officers, Prosecutors) Violence Against Women Technical Assistance Project. She has served in leadership positions on family violence task forces under two Pennsylvania attorneys general and was appointed by Governor Tom Ridge to the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. Dilsa Rohan Capdeville For 26 years, Dilsa Rohan Capdeville has led efforts to address child abuse and neglect in the Virgin Islands. After receiving her masters in social work from New York University in 1974, she returned home to St. Thomas, where she worked with the Department of Social Welfare, focusing on the family dynamics associated with child abuse and neglect. In 1978 she began serving as a child abuse specialist for St. Thomas, St. Johns and St. Croix. In that capacity, she conducted public awareness campaigns to educate government and private groups on the issues faced by abused and neglected children and helped to establish the first child abuse task force in the Virgin Islands. Ms. Capdeville joined with others to start the Women's Resource Center in 1986 and later joined the center's staff as a domestic violence therapist. In 1993, as chairperson of the Child Abuse Task Force, she worked to pass a bill that made child abuse a felony in the Virgin Islands. In 1997, she co-founded Kidscope, a child advocacy center whose multidisciplinary efforts have reached underserved victims throughout the territory. Center for Victims of Torture
Since its founding in 1985, the Center for Victims of Torture has played a leading role in treating survivors of politically motivated torture throughout the world. The first treatmentcenter of its kind in the United States, it targets the estimated half a million people in this country who have suffered from violence sanctioned by the governments of their countries of origin. The center's training program has educated thousands of medical and mental health professionals on identifying and treating torture survivors and has trained teachers and school personnel on the effects of war trauma displayed by students of refugee or immigrant families. Its research program gathers information to aid in assessing victims' needs, a critical component given how successfully torture has been used to silence victims and shield important data from service providers. In 1999, the State Department asked the center to establish a training and treatment program in Guinea, West Africa. The center's efforts there have provided healing to thousands of refugees from neighboring war-torn Liberia and Sierra Leone. The center also worked towards passage of the 1998 Torture Victims Relief Act, which authorized federal support for the treatment of torture victims in the U.S. and abroad. Today, it manages a training and technical assistance program for other centers throughout the country and leads a consortium of 25 torture treatment centers from coast to coast. Alaska Native Women Sexual Assault Committee
The Alaska Native Women Sexual Assault Committee was formed in 1999 to respond to the disproportionate incidence of victimization among Native women in the Anchorage area. It has since implemented several innovative programs that have given Alaska Native women greater accessibility to victim services. Composed of representatives from various Alaska Native organizations, local municipal agencies and victim assistance groups, the committee reaches out to Native women through education of at-risk groups and community awareness campaigns. Trained volunteers also accompany plainclothes police officers to high-risk locations, such as bars and conventions, to share information on personal safety and create a community presence. Prior to the establishment of the Committee, Alaska Native women accounted for 45 to 50 percent of reported sexual assault victimizations in the Anchorage area even though they represent only 3.5 percent of the city's total population. By the end of the Committee's first year, the number of reported assaults had decreased by 20 percent. The Children's Assessment Center
Since its founding in 1991, the Children's Assessment Center in Houston, Texas has grown into the largest child advocacy center in the nation, having handled nearly 10,000 cases and served over 38,000 children. A partnership between 13 public and private agencies, the center provides a full range of services, including therapy, medical examinations and forensic interviews for abused children. It administers sexual assault examinations using state-of-the-art videocolposcopy, a non-invasive procedure conducted by trained pediatricians and a nurse practitioner. The center also conducts videotaped forensic interviews of child victims; offers health and therapeutic services, including expressive arts and individual and group therapy; gives expert testimony in civil and criminal court cases; and advocates for children and their families as their cases make their way through the criminal justice system. A successful volunteer program has helped win the center recognition as a worldwide model. It has hosted professionals from Hong Kong, Argentina and Taiwan, as well as states throughout the United States. Centerstaff have traveled as far as Finland to provide training. In April 2000, the National Association of Counties presented the center with an Acts of Caring Award and the Legacy Award for Excellence. SPECIAL LEADERSHIP AWARDS The Honorable John L. Collins
Beginning with his election as Yamhill County District Attorney in 1976 and continuing through his current tenure on the bench, Judge John Collins has devoted his public service career to improving victims' status in the criminal justice system. After helping to obtain federal funding for a part-time victim advocate in the district attorney's office in 1978, Judge Collins started the first victim-witness program in Oregon. In 1980, he founded a 24-hour rape victim advocate program staffed by volunteers, and he ordered law enforcement officers to utilize the program in dealing with victims of sexual assault. A year later, his involvement with a domestic violence committee helped to establish Henderson House Family Crisis Shelter and Services, where he served on the board of directors. As president of the Oregon District Attorney's Association, Judge Collins hosted workshops and presentations on victim advocacy to raise prosecutors' awareness of victims' issues. After his appointment as circuit court judge in 1992, he continued his commitment to victims, encouraging victims to make victim impact statements during sentencing proceedings. He also instituted a debriefing program to help jurors in traumatic criminal cases. Judi Patton Judi Patton has used her visibility as Kentucky's First Lady to advance the cause of victims, particularly of women and children. During the 1996 General Assembly, Mrs. Patton successfully advocated for legislation to allow children's testimony to be videotaped instead of making children appear in court. In 1998, she proposed legislation to strengthen the child protection system in Kentucky by allowing courts to take swift action when a child is at risk of physical or sexual abuse. She also testified in support of legislation to mandate domestic violence training for criminal justice, health and mental health professionals and a measure giving victim advocates statutory authority to accompany victims into the courtroom. As chairperson of the Governor's Council on Domestic Violence, Mrs. Patton has helped to implement a number of victim-friendly measures, including model domestic violence policies and protocols, training curricula, and a certification program for mental health professionals who conduct offender treatment services for the court. She has also secured funding to upgrade battered women's shelters and rape crisis centers throughout the state, as well as funding by the state for children's advocacy centers. In addition, Mrs. Patton has used her position to educate Kentuckians on the subjects of domestic violence, child abuse and sexual assault and has appeared in public service announcements. Her work on behalf of victims has won her national recognition and numerous state, federal and national awards. SUSAN LAURENCE MEMORIAL
AWARD Susan Laurence (Posthumous) As a program specialist for the Office for Victims of Crime, Susan Laurence was responsible for guiding the Department of Justice in understanding the value of offender accountability in a victim's recovery and for helping to bring issues of victimization to the attention of criminal justice practitioners who work with offenders. Her work with corrections departments nationwide helped lead to the establishment of corrections-based victim-witness coordinator positions and the development of training programs to improve the response of corrections officials to crime victims. Due in large part to her efforts, many state corrections departments now have victim-witness units and the American Correctional Association has a full-fledged Victim Committee. Ms. Laurence also helped steer the victim service field to greater involvement in restorative justice. Prior to her work in this area, practices such as victim-offender mediation and family group conferencing focused primarily on their rehabilitative value to offenders. Ms. Laurence used her position to draw the attention of practitioners to the needs of victims and to the concerns many victims have about restorative justice practices, helping to ensure a viable avenue for victim healing through the criminal justice system. |
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