Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

National Victim Assistance Agency Survey, 1992

Metadata Updated: November 28, 2023

This data collection examines victim assistance programs that are operated by law enforcement agencies, prosecutor's offices, and independent assistance agencies. Victim assistance programs came into being when it was discovered that, in addition to the physical, emotional, and financial impact of a crime, victims often experience a "second victimization" because of insensitive treatment by the criminal justice system. Specifically, this study sought to answer the following questions: (1) What are the current staffing levels of victim assistance programs? (2) What types of victims come to the attention of the programs? (3) What types of services are provided to victims? and (4) What are the operational and training needs of victim assistance programs? The survey was sent to 519 police departments, sheriff departments, and prosecutor's offices identified as having victim assistance programs. Also, 172 independent full-service agencies that were believed to provide referral or direct services to victims (not just advocacy) were also sent surveys. Variables on staffing levels include the number of full-time, part-time, and volunteer personnel, and the education and years of experience of paid staff. Victim information includes the number of victims served for various types of crime, and the percent of victims served identified by race/ethnicity and by age characteristics (under 16 years old, 17-64 years old, and over 65 years old). Variables about services include percent estimates on the number of victims receiving various types of assistance, such as information on their rights, information on criminal justice processes, "next-day" crisis counseling, short-term supportive counseling, or transportation. Other data gathered include the number of victims for which the agency arranged emergency loans, accompanied to line-ups, police or prosecutor interviews, or court, assisted in applying for state victim compensation, prepared victim impact statements, notified of court dates or parole hearings, or made referrals to social service agencies or mental health agencies. Information is also presented on training provided to criminal justice, medical, mental health, or other victim assistance agency personnel, and whether the agency conducted community or public school education programs. Agencies ranked their need for more timely victim notification of various criminal justice events, improvement or implementation of various forms of victim and public protection, and improvement of victim participation in various stages of the criminal justice process. Agencies also provided information on training objectives for their agency, number of hours of mandatory pre-service and in-service training, types of information provided during the training of their staff, sources for their training, and the priority of additional types of training for their staff. Agency variables include type of agency, year started, and budget information.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: us-pd

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date August 18, 2021
Metadata Updated Date November 28, 2023

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOJ JSON

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date August 18, 2021
Metadata Updated Date November 28, 2023
Publisher National Institute of Justice
Maintainer
Identifier 3656
Data First Published 1995-08-16T00:00:00
Language eng
Data Last Modified 1995-08-16T00:00:00
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 011:21
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://www.justice.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 8fcf7af5-aaa2-40bb-b5ea-6211e2b23eeb
Harvest Source Id 3290e90a-116f-42fc-86ac-e65521ef3b68
Harvest Source Title DOJ JSON
License http://www.usa.gov/publicdomain/label/1.0/
Program Code 011:060
Publisher Hierarchy Office of Justice Programs > National Institute of Justice
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 301874f0b3ef3871805e7b960fbc4bfb3844b01e25d3165c6fc7514a77f31ab8
Source Schema Version 1.1

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.