Cooley Seeks to Focus on Abuse Cases
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley announced Thursday that he is shuffling staff in 10 branch offices to concentrate more on crimes of sexual abuse, child abuse, elder abuse, family violence and hate crimes.
The new Victim Impact Program, which begins Monday, will enable the same deputy district attorney to be involved in a given case from beginning to end, in what is termed “vertical prosecution.”
In recent weeks, 80 prosecutors have been trained in how to better handle cases involving abuse, family violence and hate crimes, Cooley said. They have also been educated about support services available to victims.
Each office will have a coordinator to assign and track cases and closely watch the prosecutors’ workloads. Cooley said that because there was no uniform system in the past, some deputy district attorneys were being overloaded.
The program will “provide new resources to better assist victims often selected for their vulnerability,” he said.
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