Collaborative Problem-Solving Partnerships: Advancing Community Policing Philosophy to Domestic Violence Victim Services

Abstract

Throughout the last three decades, victims and victim advocates have significantly advanced victim's rights and services and have altered the fabric of police-victim interactions from viewing victims as necessary witnesses (Laszlo and Burgess, 1979; Waller, 1990) to engaging victims and victim organizations as collaborative partners in developing victim-oriented criminal justice services. As criminal justice agencies seek to engage stakeholders in problem-solving strategies, victims and victim organizations are becoming active partners in prevention, intervention, and restitution initiatives, and have been instrumental in tailoring criminal justice systems services to the needs of special populations. This paper describes four ongoing efforts to effect prevention, intervention, and restitution activities for special populations of victims and, in particular, to advancing community policing and community government in or for special populations. Within the historical contexts of the victim's movement, these efforts manifest the expanding role of victims as collaborative partners of police (including tribal police), prosecutors, and the courts.