Department of Justice Grant: Enhancing Victim Communication in Offender Reentry

Probation and parole officers use a variety of strategies to supervise individuals on their caseloads, but it is not always common practice to communicate with victims. Officers are often unprepared and may be uncomfortable with victim contact or not know or understand victims’ concerns. Officers may also be unclear about what victims’ rights are under federal and state laws, what other stakeholders may be responsible for communicating with victims, and what information they can appropriately share with them. Interaction between an officer and a victim, however, present opportunities for the officer to hold an offender accountable more effectively. This may be as simple as an officer contacting victims to provide them with the officer’s telephone number in the event that the offender behaves inappropriately toward the victims. It is important for the officer to know and understand the dynamics that may exist in the lives of the offenders they supervise and how that intersects with victims’ experience. Depending on the crime and the relationship between the victim and offender, the officer may want to use different strategies to interact with the victim. For example, the victim and offender may have a close familial relationship, such as having children in common or other circumstances that bring them into contact regularly. This type of interaction is different for crimes in which the offender and victim are strangers.
A proposal in response to this solicitation should, at a minimum, include a review of available literature regarding victims and the reentry process, a work plan regarding the development of handbook materials, a description of the proposed finished product, a work plan for reviewing handbook drafts, and suggested ideas and strategies for engaging probation and parole officers in using the handbook.
Scope of Work: The cooperative agreement awardee will design and develop a handbook to assist probation and parole officers in understanding the rights statutorily granted to victims of crime, the importance of considering the needs of victims, and the potential benefits of engaging them in the offender reentry process. The handbook should also provide strategies for communicating with victims in a safe, productive manner that promotes understanding and collaboration. The handbook is not intended to be an extensive, all-encompassing document, but a practical guide to promote effective communication between officers and victims.

Deliverables: Tasks to be performed through this cooperative agreement include: (1) an annotated bibliography as a result of a review of current literature to identify relevant material that will inform the handbook content; (2) development of a list of frequently asked questions for probation and parole officers for inclusion in the handbook and on NIC’s website; (3) development of the handbook, including a content review process; and (4) a final report that summarizes the project and provides recommendations for follow-up work on this topic.