Parallel Justice Podcast for January 2011

Beat Intro
Voiceover
00.10	This is the Beat - a podcast series that keeps you in the know about the latest 
community policing topics facing our nation.

Circle of Respect Interview
Jeremy
00.15	Hello, my name is Jeremy Writt.  On behalf of the COPS office, I'm here today 
with Susan Herman to talk about Parallel Justice. Miss Herman, what is Parallel 
Justice and how are you involved?

Susan
00.28	Well Parallel Justice is really a set of principles that provide a framework for 
responding to crime in a new way. I developed this concept to emphasize that as 
a society, we not only have a responsibility to identify offenders and hold them 
accountable, we have a separate and distinct obligation to help victims rebuild 
their lives. I believe that every victim of crime deserves justice, a communal 
response to help them get their lives back on track - regardless of the status of 
the offender. And I used the term 'Parallel Justice' to emphasize that there are 
two separate paths to justice - - one for victims and one for offenders. And our 
responses can take place contemporaneously.

Jeremy
01.11	What do you mean by communal?

Susan
01.12	 I mean all sectors of society - government, agencies, community-based 
organizations, and individuals - neighbors, businesses - everybody has a role to 
play in providing parallel justice. 

Jeremy
01.26	What would you say are the ten guiding principles of Parallel Justice? If you 
could just briefly educate us on what those are.

Susan
01.33	Sure. The first is:  justice requires helping victims of crime rebuild their lives. 
Then, all victims of crime deserve justice.  All victims should be presumed 
credible, unless there is reason to believe otherwise. Victim safety should be a top 
priority. Victims should experience no further harm - and by that I don't mean 
necessarily from the offender - I mean by other agencies' policies and practices. 
Victims' rights should be implemented and enforced. Victims should have 
opportunities to talk about their experience and their needs. Victims should be 
told that what happened to them was wrong and that every effort will be made 
to help them rebuild their lives. Victims' needs should be addressed through a 
comprehensive coordinated communal response. And finally, decisions about 
how to address victims' needs should be based on sound information and 
research.

Jeremy
02.27	How would a law enforcement agency incorporate that into their community 
policing effort?

Susan
02.33	Well to me, community policing supports problem-solving and promotes 
legitimacy. And I think efforts to prevent the next crime or essentially preventing 
repeat victimization are very important community policing strategies. Research 
tells us that once you're the victim of crime you are more likely to be a victim of 
that crime again - at least for a short time. So, in order to address the problem of 
repeat victimization, police have to keep records that track victimization -- not 
just offending behavior. And they need to place a high priority on victim safety.  
As to legitimacy, in the aftermath of crime, if victims feel that the police blame 
them for the crime or they disbelieve them or trivialize their experience, they're 
less likely to share more information with anyone else or seek help. By contrast, 
when police demonstrate concern, tell victims explicitly that what happened to 
them is wrong and actively engage them in problem solving and safety planning, 
victims are more likely to remain hopeful and feel they're regaining control over 
their lives. But this means that they have confidence in the legitimacy of police 
and the criminal justice process. If victims know that their safety is a high priority 
they are much more likely to report to police and stay involved throughout the 
entire process. 

Jeremy
03.54	Now your organization does a lot to help police or law enforcement agencies 
incorporate this into their day-to-day activities. If you could, tell us a little bit 
about what you do and the services you guys provide to law enforcement 
agencies.

Susan
04.13	Well I work with a number of colleagues in what we call the Parallel Justice 
Project and there are really three phases to the work. First, you need to introduce 
the concept of parallel justice and that really involves the police department 
trying to generate support for parallel justice. Many departments have done this 
by distributing the book, Parallel Justice for Victims of Crime, or convening 
public meetings where they talk about it. What we do during that process is help 
with public speaking and give workshops to anyone in the community that the 
department identifies. Then you begin to plan the parallel justice initiative and 
the department can try and convene multi-agency interdisciplinary task force and 
if they want we can help facilitate that strategic planning process. And then you 
implement the plan that you come up with. And what we can do during that 
period of time is coach various members of the task force, whether it's agency 
heads or people within an agency who are carrying out the details of the plan.

Jeremy
05.20	So this really does kind of force law enforcement to get out into the community 
just by the very nature of that awareness arm of it. 

Susan
05.32	It certainly promotes collaboration. Well, let me tell you about three departments 
who are in three different stages of this work. In Burlington, the department has 
played a very key role in a three-way Parallel Justice Partnership between the 
department, the local community justice center, and the Vermont Center for 
Crime Victim Services. Early on in the process -- and this has been years that 
they've been working on this -- they determined that one of the problems they 
wanted to address was the lack of concrete resources for crime victims in their 
community. The department felt very frustrated that they had no way to help 
victims with very practical needs like changing a lock or fixing a broken window, 
or even being able to quickly replace some household items stolen in a burglary. 
So with these partners they created the Parallel Justice Resource Bank to be able 
to offer victims concrete practical services. Last count, they had 45 businesses 
who contributed free or discounted services to crime victims. Everything from 
discounted bicycles, repair work and food, to free emergency daycare -- when 
you think about a crime victim needing to go to court and needing day care. So 
they've done a lot of work. That department also has a designated Parallel Justice 
specialist who works alongside their more traditional victim advocate. The 
advocate help victims go through the criminal justice processes - most advocates 
do - but the Parallel Justice specialist advocates for victims to get resources and 
services to help them move on with their lives. So that's Burlington. They have 
also created a Parallel Justice commission that was created by both the governor 
and mayor of Burlington. They meet quarterly. They address problems identified 
by individual crime victims and when those problems reveal systemic 
breakdowns, they work collaboratively to solve them. And this, I believe, 
enhances community policing efforts on the ground.  
  
Across the country, in Redlands, California they have made helping victims 
rebuild their lives one of the five guiding principles of the Redland's police 
department. They have really focused a lot on the importance of responding 
officers - not only gathering evidence in determining if a crime occurred - but  
engaging victims in problem solving to try to prevent repeat victimization. They 
have made a particular effort to actively communicate to victims through all their 
contacts with them, that what happened to them is wrong and they'll do 
everything they can to assist them. This message comes from responding officers, 
their website, and even cards sent by their 911 operators a few weeks after the 
initial call. It sounds like a little thing but it means the world to crime victims to 
hear this message consistently. 
 
Jeremy
08.29	Certainly.  And it's got to be great to have that kind of emotional response to 
what's going on with them in their lives and not just have law enforcement be  
that robotic authority figure.

Susan
08.42	Well, it's actually more than a-- it certainly shows compassion, but it's more than 
that. It says 'we believe that what happened to you is wrong'. It's actually a 
judgment and saying 'we're going to do everything we can to assist you'. 
  
Let me tell you a little about Providence, in Rhode Island -- they are at the 
beginning of this process. They've distributed the book, Parallel Justice for 
Victims of Crime, to their entire command staff as well as the social service 
agencies, and local university, who are their partners in this effort. They are about 
to undertake an analysis of how every aspect of their department - any function 
that has anything at all to do with victims can be aligned to follow parallel justice 
principles. They plan to do interviews, focus groups, surveys of victims -- they'll 
look at everything from the way the 911 operators talk to callers, the responding 
officers in detective roles, to the property clerk and any administrative fees the 
victims incur. They'll also analyze their records - this is really important - to see if 
they are tracking repeat victimization as well as possible, not only offending 
behavior - repeat victimization - to make sure they're keeping victims' safety a 
high priority. 

10.01	Providence has been designated a teaching department.  So the lessons they've 
learned from this work will be shared with probably a thousand other police 
departments in the northeast through regional training. They'll also share this 
work with the northeast major chiefs association - the 13 biggest departments in 
six New England states. I am very excited about what's ahead for Providence 
because this is going to be a very comprehensive effort.

Jeremy
10.32	Well obviously it's working in Providence. We are almost out of time -- but if I 
am a member of another law enforcement agency and I want to get started with 
Parallel Justice, where do I go? Where do I tap into all these resources?

Susan	
10.44	I think you look first at www.paralleljustice.org online. You see what we are all 
about, you get a copy of the book, and see whether this is an initiative that you'd 
like to endorse. It's sort of remarkably simple, but it really promotes very 
profound results. The police in Redlands talk about this as a paradigm shifting 
experience for them.



Jeremy
11.12	Well Susan, I know you're a busy lady and I want to thank you again for taking 
the time to talk with us about Parallel Justice. On behalf of the COPS office, I'm 
Jeremy Writt and this has been The Beat.
Beat Exit
Voiceover: 	The Beat was brought to you by the United States Department of Justice Cops 
Office.  The Cops Office helps to keep our nation's communities safe by giving 
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developing partnerships and solving problems.

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