Crime Victims Should Be Sensitively Treated, S.D. Task Force Finds

Police officers, reporters, doctors and others who deal with the victims of violent crimes can and should do more to show sensitivity to them, a crime victim task force said Friday.

In a brief press conference, the San Diego Task Force on Victims of Crime presented the results of a task force study that seeks to give insight into the agony of victims and outline suggestions on how to minimize their pain.

The primary purpose of the report, which has been in the making for about a year, is to offer advice to the various professionals that deal with crime victims on how to be both more effective and more sensitive in their treatment of them.

“The victim, first, last and always is a victim. However, to the physician, the victim is also a patient. To the police and prosecutor, both victim and witness. To the reporter, both victim and source of public interest and information. Professionals often retreat into their professional roles when confronted with a victim of crime, which has built into it some inherent distance between the server and the served,” said Victoria Garcia, executive director of the California Center on Victimology. Garcia said that the report is the only one of its kind in the state.

About a year ago, the center organized the task force to commemorate National Victims’ Rights Week. The group later organized a day of testimony by more than 30 crime victims, each of whom shared the experiences with the media, the courts, the clergy and others. The report is largely the result of that testimony, Garcia said.

Danna Yoder, a task force spokesperson, said copies of the report will be circulated “as widely as possible” to the various agencies that deal with crime victims.

Task force members are hopeful the report will open peoples’ eyes to the pain that crime victims suffer, Garcia said.

Dr. John Swanke, a University of San Diego professor, knows from personal experience the painful helplessness that one often feels after a personal tragedy. The report is dedicated to the memory of his daughter, Anne Catherine Swanke, who was violently murdered over a year ago in San Diego,

“We still feel the pain of her loss. I do not think I really appreciated the meaning of the word victim until I became one by suffering the tragic loss of a beautiful daughter. . . . The pain comes from the sudden thrust into the public eye, the confusion as a result of the strong emotional experience, and the lack of any organized and directed assistance when tragedy and disaster strike,” he said.

“The stress of anger, sorrow and sadness is heightened by the strangeness of dealing with the system, which has its job to do. Workers within the system try to be thoughtful and sensitive but there is no way they can make the experience pleasant for the victims,” he said.

Still, the report offers some suggestions on how to make it easier. For example, the report asks that the media participate often in the production of public service announcements and public awareness campaigns to inform the public of victim concerns. The report also suggests that police officers give a high priority to investigating witness reports of threats or intimidation.

As for the medical community, the report indicates a need for a mandatory personnel training program that would sensitize them to victims’ needs. The report also said that hospital staff should be trained on the effects of post traumatic stress disorder.

“It is the goal of the task force . . . that the readers of this report apply the recommendations . . . to their own special discipline and become actively involved in the effort to give the victims of crime a voice which can be heard,” Garcia said.