Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News
To further the victim service capabilities of domestic and international partner agencies, VSD provides training and support to law enforcement and other professionals to enhance their victim assistance programs. These trainings include how to build victim services programs, enhance child/adolescent forensic interviewing skills, deliver death notifications without further traumatizing family members, and conduct victim and family briefings following mass casualty events.
Many of the services and resources VSD provides are used in tandem—especially when the need arises to surge support for a particular case or area. This includes the FBI’s response to last summer’s Supreme Court ruling that a large segment of the eastern portion of the state of Oklahoma would return to federal/tribal reservation land, which added many additional cases under the FBI’s jurisdiction. For VSD, this led to approximately a 1,130% increase in victims requiring FBI assistance in that area. The FBI has responded by surging resources, to include victim services assets, to Oklahoma to support the local communities. VSD has been providing services, resources, and forensic interviews to victims as well as training law enforcement personnel on providing culturally sensitive death notifications and assisting in setting up multi-disciplinary teams to coordinate across local agencies during investigations.
As the country marks National Crime Victims’ Rights Week this week, take a moment to learn more about the assistance and services the FBI provides victims of crime and their families.