spacerOffice for Victims of Crime--Putting Victims First Rural Victim Assistance--A Victim/Witness Guide for Rural Prosecutors OJP seal
About This Documentdecorative green boxAcknowledgmentsRelated LinksHome
Rural Community Dynamics
Victim/Witness Assistance in Rural Communities
   Disparities Between Rural
    and Urban Jurisdictions

   Victim/Witness Advocates
Overcoming Challenges to Serving Rural Victims
Promising Practices in Rural Prosecutors' Offices
Supplementary Material
 

Victim/Witness Advocates

The prosecutor's office is responsible for ensuring that victims' and witnesses' rights are upheld and protected throughout the court process. Yet this duty may be severely hampered in rural prosecutors' offices, which—unlike prosecutors' offices in large urban jurisdictions—are far less likely to have staff that are specifically designated to work directly with victims of crime. In fact, an APRI survey, discussed in more detail later in this section, found that urban prosecutors' offices spent nearly 20 percent more time on direct victim assistance than rural offices did.

In rural prosecutors' offices, victim services are provided by staff members who also carry other responsibilities. In one rural Illinois State's Attorney's Office, for example, the person who handles victim services works with as many as 500 victims a month, notifying them of defendants' appearances before a judge. This individual also has other duties, such as demanding payment on all bad check cases, helping attorneys prepare cases for jury trials, and obtaining defendants' criminal histories (Sifferd 1998).

This scenario is common among rural prosecutors' offices, where prosecutors must make maximum use of each staff person. As such, roles and responsibilities in many of these offices transcend job titles—clerical staff provide victim/witness assistance, attorneys do clerical work, and victim/witness advocates help investigate and prepare cases. In fact, APRI's survey found that 56 percent of support staff in rural offices perform some victim/witness assistance tasks, while 48 percent of the advocates perform general support functions unrelated to victim/witness assistance.

A comprehensive review by APRI (2002) of the daily activities of victim advocates reveals that those in rural offices spend 69 percent of their time on activities that relate specifically to processing cases and assisting victims. They spend 31 percent of their time on activities that do not relate to cases, such as office management, law enforcement coordination, general clerical activities, and community outreach.3 By comparison, advocates in urban offices reported spending nearly 89 percent of their time on activities that relate specifically to processing cases and assisting victims—nearly 20 percent more time than their rural counterparts spent providing victim assistance.

Case-Related Activities
Non-Case-Related Activities
A Week in the Life of the Rural Victim Advocate


OVC Home | About OVC | OVC Publications | Website Links Disclaimer

Office of Justice Programs
Partnerships for Safer Communities