A Community Response Manual: The Victim’s Role in Offender Reentry

Source: (2001) Lexington, KY: American Probation and Parole Assoc. Downloaded 22 October 2003.

This manual presents strategies for involving community members and crime victims in partnerships that facilitate the successful re-entry of ex-inmates into the community, as well as promising practices for re-entry partnerships. In the discussion of strategies for involving community members and victims in re-entry partnerships, the manual first defines “community” as “relationships that people build, beginning with one-on-one and emerging into groups of varying sizes that share a common bond and mutual interests.” It then advises that in re-entry partnerships, collaboration is required between the following four key communities: victims or those who provide support and services to victims, offenders or advocates for offenders, individuals and agencies that implement venues for justice and community safety, and persons who are affected by an offender’s re-entry into their neighborhood. Attention is then given to the role of the community in determining and meeting victims’ needs, particularly in the context of offender re-entry. Such a community role includes support, advocacy, liaison services, and the creation of public awareness of victims’ needs and rights. Sections of the manual then focus on ensuring victims’ rights in the re-entry process in the following key areas: victim notification, victim protection, the defining of victim impact, and victim restitution. Another major section of the manual profiles existing promising practices for re-entry partnerships, including a burglary prevention project; victim advisory councils; considering victims’ needs when assessing offenders’ risk; programs that pertain to the impact of crime on victims; accountability boards; victim-sensitive parole revocation processes; and restorative community service. Abstract courtesy of National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.org.