Shelby County District Attorney's Victim Witness Services Program

The Shelby County District Attorney General (SCDAG) office proposes to implement the Enhancing SCDAG's Victim/Witness Unit and Data Transparency Effort. The purpose is to provide support and resources while enabling crime victims and witnesses to feel safe while ensuring justice. Project activities include empowerment tools for victims such as pepper spray, personal alarms, ring cameras, and changing/rekeying home locks. Victims often have to wait in court for hours and by the time court is over, their phone battery is dead, providing wall charging mount stations with built in cords would be included in the project. Victims/Witnesses need to be provided safe lodging enabling them to testify against violent offenders without fear of retaliation, threats, or intimidation. Included in the project would be providing safe lodging for threatened victims/witnesses. Expected outcomes would be successful prosecution due to the cooperation of crime victims/ and or witnesses. Justice would be ensured due to victims/witnesses being safe to attend court and testify. The SCDAG's office proposes to implement the Data Transparency Effort by enhancing and improving current gaps in the data entry process. Project activities include building dashboards to help the SCDAG's office internally monitor data entry practices and gaps in their current process. Expected outcomes include a greater understanding of the work done in the SCDAG's office with more accurate data while improving the functioning of the criminal justice system in Shelby County.