State-Tribal Crime Victim Liaison Demonstration Program: Tribal Outreach To Establish Trust and Increase Awareness of Victim Services

• NCJ Number: 249582
• Date Published: December 2016
• Length: 17 pages
• Agencies: OVC
• Publication Type: Report (Technical Assistance); Report (Grant Sponsored); Program/Project Description

Annotation

This report presents the features, results, and recommendations of Oklahoma's State-Tribal Victim Liaison Demonstration Program, which used a grant from the U.S. Justice Department's Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) to provide outreach to American Indian (AI) crime victims in the State.

Abstract

Oklahoma has 38 federally recognized tribal headquarters and members of 67 tribes. The State's tribal communities experience high rates of criminal victimization, and crime victims are underserved and unaware of available victim services. The Oklahoma District Attorneys Council's Victim Services Division, competitively applied for and received an OVC grant to provide outreach to AI crime victims in the State. The grant program has provided tribal victim assistance, tribal grant opportunities, and crime victim compensation. It has produced positive results that have continued beyond the end of the outreach project. The project has increased awareness of available victim services funding, the number and funding of grant applications, and funding for direct services. Although the project ended at the end of fiscal year 2014, its benefits for tribal access to victim services are ongoing into 2016. The Oklahoma State-Tribal Crime Victim Liaison Demonstration Program offers 12 recommendations for improving Oklahoma's tribal communities' access to victim services. They include meeting face-to-face with tribal victim services contacts rather than contacting them through electronic communications; being an active listener in the field and advocating for policy changes based on problems identified by each community; and developing culturally specific materials for the crime victim compensation program and distributing them among the tribes. Appendixes contain a map of tribal jurisdictions in Oklahoma and a form letter that introduced to Oklahoma's governor the new State-Tribal Crime Victim Liaison with the Oklahoma District Attorneys Council, with a statement of the OVC funding for this position.