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This radio program is available at http:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/audio\/2010\/04\/offender-and-victim-advocacy-is-there-a-middle-ground-dc-public-safety-220000-requests-a-month\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[Audio Begins]<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 From the nation\u2019s capital, this is D.C. Public Safety.\u00a0 I\u2019m your host, Leonard Sipes.\u00a0 We have, what I believe, is another very interesting show.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to be talking about crime victims, and I know we\u2019ve been talking a lot about crime victims lately, but this time, we\u2019re going to do it from the faith based perspective, the fact that my agency, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency really has what I consider to be one of the best faith based programs in the United States in terms of reaching out to criminal offenders, volunteers and churches, mosques, synagogues to help them readjust from prison, or even on probation, but in this context, we\u2019re going to be talking about it in terms of the faith based initiative.\u00a0 Anne Seymour is one of our guests today.\u00a0 She is with Justice Solutions.\u00a0 She\u2019s a national expert on the issue of victims and victimology.\u00a0 Anne\u2019s website is www.justicesolutions.org<\/a>.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be giving that out again all throughout the program.\u00a0 Reverend Bernard Keels, the director of the University Memorial Chapel at Morgan State University in the great city of Baltimore, Maryland, where I am from, www.morgan.edu<\/a>, he\u2019s also joining with us today.\u00a0 He\u2019s a mentor and facilitator in terms of faith based groups.\u00a0 Before we begin the show, our usual commercials, we\u2019re up to 200,000 requests a month for D.C. Public Safety, television, radio, blog, and transcripts.\u00a0 That\u2019s media, M-E-D-I-A \u2013 dot-CSOSA \u2013 C-S-O-S-A \u2013 dot-gov.\u00a0 Your input into these shows is what makes the show enjoyable, and what makes the show come alive, and we really appreciate every email, every comment on our comments box, your responses via twitter, and your responses, once again, via email.\u00a0 If you want to get in touch with me directly, it is Leonard \u2013 L-E-O-N-A-R-D \u2013 dot-Sipes \u2013 S-I-P as in Peculiar-P-E-S – @csosa.gov, or you can follow us via twitter at twitter.com\/lensipes.\u00a0 Back to our guests, Anne Seymour and Reverend Bernard Keels.\u00a0 Welcome to D.C. Public Safety.<\/p>\n

Anne Seymour:\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n

Bernard Keels:\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 Anne Seymour, now I\u2019ve read your resume and been on your website, Justice Solutions, www.justicesolutions.org<\/a>.\u00a0 You\u2019ve done a ton of work with the U.S. Department of Justice in terms of victims\u2019 issues.\u00a0 You are, what I was told by Christine Keels, the person who heads up our faith based program, truly one of the national experts when it comes to victims\u2019 related issues.\u00a0 We\u2019re approaching National Victims\u2019 Week in April.\u00a0 Give me a sense as to what\u2019s happening with the victims\u2019 movement throughout the country.\u00a0 Is there a way of summarizing that in a couple minutes?<\/p>\n

Anne Seymour:\u00a0 Yeah, I think, boy, summarizing the victims\u2019 movement, we\u2019re a very, very diverse movement.\u00a0 So it\u2019s hard to summarize, but I will say that, you know, we\u2019ve got 32,000 laws across the states and the Indian country at the federal level that protect crime victims.\u00a0 A big issue now for victims is making sure that these laws are more than just rhetoric, and so we\u2019re looking a lot at compliance issues.\u00a0 For me personally, one of my big issues is also making sure that we\u2019re identifying victims who choose not to go through the justice process, which is the majority of victims who don\u2019t report crimes, and they never know that services are available to assist them, and so I\u2019m working a lot now with victims who choose not to report, as well as with agencies like CSOSA, which has been really a national model in terms of the work they do with crime victims.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 And I think, and I thank you for that, and I think Christine Keels, the person who heads the faith-based program, really deserves a lot of credit for that and really has re-invigorated the whole faith based initiative. It\u2019s interesting you talk about people not reporting crimes.\u00a0 Most crimes are not reported to law enforcement.\u00a0 40% of property crimes and about 50% of violent crimes are reported.\u00a0 So I\u2019ve oftentimes wondered what happens to those people who float through their victimization without going through the formal criminal justice system; that you\u2019ve just brought up a very interesting issue.<\/p>\n

Anne Seymour:\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting, and I think it\u2019s also very sad.\u00a0 I mean, one of the things we need to do is to make sure that everyone in a community knows about victims\u2019 services, because I may not report to the police, but I may talk to my hairdresser, to my child\u2019s student, or if I\u2019m at school, I may talk to the school nurse and still not want to report.\u00a0 That\u2019s my choice, and I support victims who choose that, but we still want them to know that they can access services for mental health counseling, for medical services that they may need.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of services that do not require reporting and going through the system.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 Reverend Bernard Keels, director, University Memorial Chapel, Morgan State University in the great city of Baltimore, again, where I\u2019m from.\u00a0 Morgan, www.morgan.edu<\/a>, one of the well known institutions of higher learning in the Baltimore Metropolitan Area.\u00a0 You\u2019re a mentor and a facilitator in terms of faith based organizations where, here in D.C., in Baltimore?<\/p>\n

Bernard Keels:\u00a0 Yeah, with the Family Reunification Program in D.C.\u00a0 One of the things that I think Anne has touched on that is so powerful is that the whole issue of the rhetoric that is present in our society, churches and faith based organizations oftentimes had to separate the historical imperative from what\u2019s happened in contemporary times.\u00a0 Going back to the Cain and Abel saga, where the first, probably the first victim was Abel, I think churches have to really begin to understand that there is a duality, if you will, with how people who are victims of crimes need to have restitution, need to have restorative justice that happens to them, and many, many times, churches tend to be so caught up into the dogma of worship that they forget the everyday issues that affect the people who are worshipping, i.e. crime victims, and yes, people do report crime victims to hairdressers and to strangers, and sometimes, the last place they come is a faith based institution because of the built in negative images of what it means to accuse, for instance, a cleric of abuse.\u00a0 Some of the institutional abuse you hear about, pedophilia in some of the mainline denominational churches, so faith based churches and institutions need to really broaden their understanding that it\u2019s okay to leap out with your faith, but to understand the very basic issues that affect people, because people, after all, bring the whole idea of parishioners, and I think that\u2019s where we have to become more relevant.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 The, especially when it applies to women victims, most, in most cases, women know who attacked them.\u00a0 In most cases, there is prior knowledge or a prior relationship.\u00a0 That is extraordinarily difficult when your best friend\/brother\/husband\/friend of five years\/somebody that you\u2019ve known for the last 30 days victimizes you, and thereby the struggle, and we understand that, in terms of people not reporting crimes, they see this in many cases as a personal event, not necessarily an event that you would report to the criminal justice system, but she\u2019s a victim nevertheless.\u00a0 So I would imagine, I can see that person going to their Imam.\u00a0 I can see that person going to their priest, going to their minister, going to their rabbi, and saying, although I don\u2019t want to report this to the criminal justice system, I am reporting it to you, I need spiritual counseling in terms of best, next steps.\u00a0 What should I do, correct?<\/p>\n

Bernard Keels:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Not only are you correct, but it\u2019s so incumbent upon that spiritual director to recognize the boundaries of their ability, his or her ability, to become a meaningful mentor, a meaningful person that could intervene in it.\u00a0 So many times, people will go to their cleric, the imam, the rabbi as a way of sort of ameliorating the situation and saying that prayer will change that, or the fact that I\u2019ll come to church will make it easier, and it takes a very strong and well-trained cleric to realize that it\u2019s okay to be able to access those governmental, or organizations like a CSOSA, to be able to partner with those governmental organizations and partner with Anne\u2019s group, and to be able to say, help me learn how to translate what I do so that a victim actually has a face and a person they can believe in in the process of healing.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 Now before going on in the program, to cretae clarity, some clarity out of all the issues we\u2019re dealing with over the course of the next 25 minutes, we have to deal with the faith based component, and the faith based component, ordinarily, is one of mentoring people under supervision. So we\u2019ve got to be dealing with the fact that there are people under supervision, and we use the faith community to mentor to them, to help them regain their footing, not do drugs, get together and take care of their families and not continue a criminal lifestyle.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got to deal with that.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got to deal with that in the context of the victims\u2019 movement, and we\u2019ve got to deal with the victims\u2019 movement across the board.\u00a0 So that\u2019s three gigantic topics that we now have, oh, 20 minutes to deal with.\u00a0 Do we want to start off with the mentoring to people under supervision\/criminal offenders?\u00a0 Do we want to start off with that component and how that interacts with the victims\u2019 movement?<\/p>\n

Bernard Keels:\u00a0 Yeah, one of the ways that we started was to be able to help offenders understand that there\u2019s not that much difference between a mentor and a mentee.\u00a0 So many times, we draw an invisible yet concrete barrier between those who have transgressed society and those who are nice, normal people.\u00a0 I\u2019ve found that it\u2019s important to tell your story and be a very good listener so that a person realizes that no matter how far you\u2019ve gone, you can come home.\u00a0 The Hebrew biblical story of the prodigal son comes to mind.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to realize that if we live against society, rehabilitation and restorative justice is possible, then that offender has to have the very realistic goal that if he or she can begin to first seek some forgiveness within themselves, their higher being, whatever it might be, then and only then can they begin to go to that person that they\u2019ve transgressed and try to be able to create a more helpful and hopeful dialogue.\u00a0 So mentors have to be very careful not to prejudge a situation based on their own concept of morality, their own concept of religion.\u00a0 Religion becomes so narrowly defined sometimes that it can become dangerous when we begin to judge people from a unidimensional yardstick that says, if you\u2019ve done this, then this is the result.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know a person\u2019s story, but I can hear who they are and interact with who they\u2019ve been, and then share a bit of my own story.\u00a0 So I think that that mentoring thing, in the faith based community, has to be able to step outside of its own power, if you will, its own sense of history, and look in the universal sense of, what does it mean if I have offended Anne, to know that Anne has the right to come to her own terms of forgiving my offense.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 All right, so basically what I\u2019m hearing is, first, the individual has to heal themselves.\u00a0 The faith based mentor, whatever religion that persons happens to represent, can\u2019t be too judgmental.\u00a0 He\u2019s there to help that person cross a bridge, but there is a certain point where he or she needs to acknowledge that they\u2019ve done a tremendous amount of harm to another human being, they need to acknowledge they\u2019ve done harm, a tremendous amount of harm to the community, so it\u2019s just not that particular act in isolation.\u00a0 There\u2019s no such thing as a burglary.\u00a0 There\u2019s no such thing as a rape.\u00a0 It is multiple, multiple victims.\u00a0 It may be one person that the state uses to prosecute, but there\u2019s an entire family, there\u2019s an entire community that\u2019s been harmed, and that offender needs to come to grips with that community \u2013<\/p>\n

Anne Seymour:\u00a0 And their own family as well.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 Yes.<\/p>\n

Bernard Keels:\u00a0 Good.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 Go ahead \u2013<\/p>\n

Anne Seymour:\u00a0 Oh, I was just going to say, that\u2019s the whole concept of restorative justice, is that you really need to look at the harm you\u2019ve done to yourself.\u00a0 I really agree.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got to go to yourself first.\u00a0 It\u2019s not about me first as a victim advocate, or as someone who\u2019s a probation officer, it is really looking at you and the harm that you did, but how I hurt you and your family first, and then your victim, and then your neighborhood, and then your community, so it\u2019s very, very important that we understand, it\u2019s almost like a tidal wave that occurs.\u00a0 It may start out as a little wave, but when you think about the impact of crime, it goes so far in our society, and I think traditionally, a lot of folks that are under community supervision, we\u2019ve never made them think about it, and a big part of what we\u2019re talking about today is that we want them to think about it, and we\u2019re going to give them help to acknowledge that they have caused harm to people, and that we\u2019re giving them an opportunity to make up for the harm that they\u2019ve caused.<\/p>\n

Bernard Keels:\u00a0 From a spiritual point of view, acknowledgment is only part of it, Leonard.\u00a0 Understanding becomes an even deeper part, because when you understand something, there\u2019s a possibility for transformation to take place.\u00a0 So many times, people carry on the label of being an alcoholic or a drug addict or a recovering drug addict.\u00a0 I try to get a person to the point where they both acknowledge and understand they can become a delivered person so they don\u2019t go that pathway again.\u00a0 They discover new pathways to conflict resolution, new pathways to understand that their personal issues don\u2019t have dominance over someone else\u2019s issue because of their role or their gender or their relationship or their wealth, and so many times, society begins to casually assign value on crimes based on who\u2019s committing the crime.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 Well, the society puts labels on each and every one of us for a thousand different reasons, whether you\u2019re African American, whether you\u2019re white, whether you\u2019re short, whether you\u2019re tall, whether you\u2019re Hispanic, whether you\u2019re a male, whether you\u2019re female, whether you\u2019re from the United States, or whether you\u2019re from Germany, we all tend to provide stereotypes.\u00a0 So the stereotype of the criminal offender, or the stereotype of the person under supervision, however you want to describe that person, doesn\u2019t that come with the territory?\u00a0 Anne?<\/p>\n

Anne Seymour:\u00a0 You know, I think it does.\u00a0 I think we are judgmental, even though we\u2019re all mamby pamby and say we\u2019re not supposed to be, but we do judge.\u00a0 We very often do judge a book by its cover.\u00a0 But it\u2019s the same thing when, you know, when we talk about victims, people see victims as weak, as someone who might have been partially responsible for what happened to them.\u00a0 We make judgments about victims, and when we talk about why crime victims don\u2019t report crimes, it\u2019s because they are afraid that no one\u2019s going to believe them, and they\u2019re afraid of being blamed, and the thing that you mentioned, Leonard, I think is so important.\u00a0 Very often, they know the person, and so they don\u2019t want to get that person in trouble, or they\u2019re fearful of that person.\u00a0 So we need to recognize that we do judge people who have committed offenses, and very often, I think our judgments are way off, just as they are with crime victims, that we should not make assumptions that anyone is a certain way because they committed an offense, or because someone committed one against them.\u00a0 With victims, for me, it\u2019s always so important to, despite all the research that tells us about domestic violence victims, and kids who are child abuse victims, everyone is unique.\u00a0 Every single person has their own story.\u00a0 Every person came to the path of victimization with a lot of stuff that came before that we need to recognize, which is going to affect how they cope with the victimization.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 I want to reintroduce my guests halfway through the program, and it\u2019s going by like wildfire.\u00a0 Anne Seymour, Justice Solutions, www.justicesolutions.org<\/a>, national expert in terms of victim assistance.\u00a0 Reverend Bernard Keel is director of University Memorial Chapel at Morgan State University in grand and glorious Baltimore, Maryland, www.morgan.edu<\/a>.\u00a0 We go with the research, and you go with a certain sense of pragmatism, and I just want to touch upon this whole sense of labeling very quickly and then move on.\u00a0 If I don\u2019t introduce that, if I don\u2019t introduce the anger on the part of the crime victims, if I don\u2019t introduce the anger on the part of the average citizen who happens to listen to this program, they don\u2019t see the program is relevant.\u00a0 They say, Leonard, for the love of good god, at least acknowledge the fact that we are suffering and the community is suffering.\u00a0 Yeah, I do understand that programs need to be there for offenders\/people under supervision.\u00a0 I need, I understand all of that, but somewhere along the line, you\u2019ve got to acknowledge the harm.\u00a0 Okay, so if we acknowledge the harm, then we can move on and say that the research is pretty clear that these programs, and programs run the gamut from drug treatment to mental health treatment to finding jobs to dealing with a wide array of other social issues, do have a way of lessening recidivism, which means fewer offenders go back to the criminal justice system, which saves a) victims from being victims, and b) taxpayers from having to pay additional taxes.\u00a0 The research indicates that there\u2019s approximately a 10-20% reduction in recidivism, so Reverend Keels, by mentoring to individuals, helping them cross that bridge, that\u2019s accelerating that process, is it not?<\/p>\n

Bernard Keels:\u00a0 Not only is it accelerating the process, but it really assures that recidivism does not become the revolving door that so many times is in the criminal justice system.\u00a0 Apart from the understanding of the offender, I want to really talk a bit about the victim.\u00a0 So many times, the victim, in his or her silence, has been shunned by all of the institutional support.\u00a0 Most of the institutional support in America is for offenders, and so the support, there\u2019s parole, probation, there\u2019s \u2013<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 98% of it is focused on the person, the participant within the criminal system.<\/p>\n

Bernard Keels:\u00a0 This is where the community becomes important.\u00a0 The community becomes the holistic vehicle by which we can rally around the whole adage about, it takes a village to heal something, can rally around and begin to say that it\u2019s not your fault, that there is a way of you being able to come to grips with your own hurt, and maybe someday, at your pace, forgive, but not to put the victim in a sense of being revictimized.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 Yes.<\/p>\n

Bernard Keels:\u00a0 So many times, faith communities make that mistake, Leonard, to revictimize the person.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 And that\u2019s part of the problem here, in terms of the calls and letters that I get, or the emails, is that, don\u2019t revictimize people who are victimized by crime.\u00a0 We do understand that you\u2019re advocating for more programs for criminal offenders, and we understand that, but somewhere along the line, you have to advocate for us, which is the reasons why we\u2019re doing these radio shows in.<\/p>\n

Anne Seymour:\u00a0 I just remember, as a young victim advocate, and this was 25 years ago, I was training probation officers, and a woman lingered afterwards, and told me about being a battered woman.\u00a0 She was a probation officer who was in a chronic battering, and she told me about going to her minister, and he said to her, if you would just be a better wife and think about your children, it\u2019s important that you stay with him for the sake of the family.\u00a0 And I remember her crying, and I remember crying myself thinking, oh my gosh, we have to do something if that\u2019s the advice that faith communities are giving to victims, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m so happy to be addressing this subject today, because people do not, they\u2019re not mean to victims intentionally, but they say the wrong things, and the faith community, in trying to keep the family together and trying to stick with, especially the Christian requirement forgiveness can be extremely hurtful to victims.\u00a0 So we have partnered, over the years, and developed wonderful training programs, and a lot of work like the mentoring that the reverend is doing, that helps them understand that they have two options: they can help victims, or they can hurt victims, and we\u2019re kind of hoping that everyone sides on the help part, because there\u2019s a lot of help needed by victims.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 There is middle ground.\u00a0 From what I\u2019m hearing from both of you, there is a way of mentoring to victims, and to be sure that their rights and responsibilities are constitutional rights in most of the states, so there is a constitutional right in terms of the federal crimes, they are, they have constitutional protections.\u00a0 There is a way of taking care of the victim, and at the same time, being sure that the people under supervision, by my agency or any other agency out there, we\u2019re talking about five million human beings, seven million people caught up in the criminal justice system and the correctional system, but the vast majority of them belong to us, the people who provide community supervision.\u00a0 There is a way to take care of the victims\u2019 issues, and there is a way to take care of the people under supervision to provide them with that bridge, and in many ways, and I\u2019ve seen it first hand in the 20 years that I\u2019ve been dealing directly with the offender community, there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who have crossed that bridge, who do come to an understanding that they\u2019ve done a tremendous amount of harm, who have gotten the programs and the services necessary to help them go from tax burden to taxpayer.\u00a0 So we can do it all, is the point.<\/p>\n

Bernard Keels:\u00a0 Traditionally, institutions like faith based institutions have done, by every means necessary, to protect the pristine image of being perfect.\u00a0 Nothing bad happens here.\u00a0 Everything that walks through this door gets returned to a perfect relationship with the creator and all those kinds of things.\u00a0 One of the things that I try to do personally and professionally is to realize the need to be able to acknowledge brokenness with the victim, and to talk about those issues both biblically, historically, interpersonally, where broken does, when it becomes uncared for, brokenness becomes a characteristic, if you will, or a habitual cyclical thing where people feel to be broken.\u00a0 Case in point, and Anne reminded me so much, you\u2019re talking about that crime victim went to her pastor, I had a young lady come to me some years ago, battered and bruised, and told me that she needed to be a better wife because she knew her husband loved her, and I said why, because he beat me.\u00a0 And you know, for her, that was her Judeo-Christian training in terms of wives, submit to your husbands.\u00a0 Property issues.\u00a0 And I said to her that, let\u2019s rethink that again.\u00a0 If you remain in a state of brokenness, normally, you do not become well, you might pass that brokenness on to your offspring.\u00a0 So your children may begin to understand that that\u2019s the role of a woman, to be battered, not to be made, self-actualized through her own abilities, her own talents, and when pastors and imams and rabbis are not properly trained, they will almost always go to maintain the integrity of the institution, and not the integrity of the individual who\u2019s hurting within an institution, so it\u2019s critical to do that.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 These are all extraordinarily sensitive issues, and I think we\u2019re tackling them rather well.\u00a0 We\u2019re not avoiding them.\u00a0 We\u2019re not being a bunch of bureaucrats.\u00a0 Let me throw in one more.\u00a0 The great majority of, according to research, especially women caught up in the criminal justice system, they\u2019ve been crime victims themselves.\u00a0 Males, I mean, there\u2019s a strong piece of research, series of research articles out there talking about the fact that everybody caught up in the criminal, not everybody, the majority caught up in the criminal justice system are subject, have been the recipients of child abuse and neglect.\u00a0 The instance of women offenders being sexually assaulted, especially as children, especially by people they know is astounding.\u00a0 I understand why, after 40 years in the criminal justice system, why so many people do take to drugs, why so many people, in fact, it\u2019s 50%+ claim mental health issues, not diagnosable mental health, but they claim their own mental health issues.\u00a0 I understand a lot of that, not trying to rationalize the criminal behavior or excuse the criminal behavior, but when you come from that sort of a background, I understand why they get into drugs, and I understand why drugs, in many cases, leads to criminal behavior.\u00a0 Who wants to tackle that?<\/p>\n

Anne Seymour:\u00a0 Well, I\u2019m happy to tackle that, and thank you for bringing up female offenders.\u00a0 I think a real theme of what we\u2019re talking about is that, in the old days, we would have the people who worked with offenders, or people in prison on one side, and the victim people way on the other side, and we have come to a rightful conclusion that it is not black and white.\u00a0 We are all gray in this, and you raise a great example of women offenders, at least 90% of them have victimization and trauma in their background, which causes them very often to use and abuse, to cope with the trauma, which puts them in dangerous situations, which sometimes lead to criminal situations.\u00a0 Now tell me that\u2019s not a victim assistance issue!\u00a0 And I actually am starting\u00a0 to work on women offender issues, but similarly, I think of CSOSA as a great example.\u00a0 Why does CSOSA have a victim assistance program? People go, they\u2019re supposed to be working with people on probation.\u00a0 It is great!\u00a0 Every probationer, and people talk about victimless crimes.\u00a0 I\u2019ll make the case that there is no such thing as a victimless crime!\u00a0 For every probationer, someone is hurt by that.\u00a0 So they need to be having victim services to be able to recognize that fact, and I will give you another example.\u00a0 Prison rape is an issue.\u00a0 That\u2019s a huge concern now in this country.\u00a0 Who is stepping up to the plate to work with people who are incarcerated, men and women and youthful offenders?\u00a0 It is victim advocates.\u00a0 We have a moral obligation to not say, this person\u2019s a criminal or a murderer, or they raped themselves.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t matter to us.\u00a0 They\u2019re a victim in need of help, and so I just say that, because we not only judge people, as we said earlier, but we tend to pigeonhole people, and the beauty of what CSOSA is doing, and I hope a lot of other programs out in this country and internationally is recognizing that we\u2019ve, we can\u2019t box ourselves in anymore.\u00a0 We just can\u2019t.\u00a0 Everyone is or knows a victim of crime.\u00a0 Everyone knows someone who has been through some sort of criminal or juvenile justice supervision, so let\u2019s look at it from that perspective.\u00a0 This affects every single one of us.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 It\u2019s a massive amount of suffering, whether you\u2019re the victim, whether you\u2019re the person caught up in the criminal justice system, whether the person caught up in the criminal justice system who was victimized when they were young, there\u2019s just a massive amount of pain going on out there, and I guess it\u2019s our job, in terms of the victims\u2019 community and the faith based community and government, I sort of have to laugh when you say government.<\/p>\n

Anne Seymour:\u00a0 No, it\u2019s a big role.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 Well, we would like to, but I think the leadership is going to come from the victims\u2019 community, and I think the leadership is going to come from the faith based community, quite frankly, because you all can say and do things that we can\u2019t in government.<\/p>\n

Anne Seymour:\u00a0 The giant sucking sound we want.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 The giant \u2013<\/p>\n

Anne Seymour:\u00a0 – to get wrapped into what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 The giant, the giant sucking sound.\u00a0 Well, but we also want, at the same time, we want to convince people that it\u2019s all shades of gray, that there\u2019s very little black and white here, that it\u2019s very little E=MC2, that there is a massive amount of suffering.\u00a0 If the faith community steps up to the plate and provides the leadership which they\u2019re so capable of doing, and can mentor to individuals in a way that government, quite frankly, cannot.\u00a0 I\u2019m paid to do what I do.\u00a0 So that person, regardless of where I spent my career, part of my career in terms of helping people caught up in the criminal justice system, I\u2019m still paid to do it.\u00a0 The mentors are there because they see it as God\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Anne Seymour:\u00a0 And the keyword in all that is servant leadership.\u00a0 Leadership by itself does not hold, I think, the true sense of what can be accomplished by serving others, a servant leader takes, at the very center of his or her setting to meet a person at the point of their need, and the need of victims, the need of offenders, the needs of the secondary and tertiary victims who sometimes feel helpless because someone they love has been victimized are really, really important, and one of the things that I try to consistently understand is this marvelous study in the Hebrew scripture about Nathan, the friend of David.\u00a0 David had victimized people without realizing, because his authority said you can do it.\u00a0 You\u2019re the king, take Uriah and kill him.\u00a0 You know, you\u2019re the king, do whatever you want to do, and Nathan appeals to the core of who he is, and here through the friend, the king, who has an influence over his subjects, comes and writes one of the most powerful restorative psalms that you can read in Hebrew scripture.\u00a0 So I think that it\u2019s important that that victim realizes, never be forgotten, that Anne and I are crucial to what you do, but you are crucial too, because a part of the government, the rules and the issues become subtle and arrived at, and we\u2019ve got to be able to go into institutions and say, for instance, the homosexual rape, indeed, is victimizing people.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 Anne, I\u2019m going to give you the final 30 seconds of the program.<\/p>\n

Anne Seymour:\u00a0 I just want to reiterate that I think we\u2019re all in this together where we are victims or people who choose to victimize others, everyone\u2019s going to have needs, and we as a community, I think, have an obligation to identify the needs of victims and try to meet them, but also recognize, I really appreciate what we\u2019ve said, this whole thing is that, I think a lot of offenders, not all of them, a lot of them deserve a second chance, and the only way they can get that chance is if a community is willing to accept them and accept the fact that they have done something terribly wrong and give them opportunities to be held accountable to their victim and to their own community.<\/p>\n

Len Sipes:\u00a0 Our guests today have been Anne Seymour of Justice Solutions, www.justicesolutions.org<\/a>, a national expert on the issue of victimology.\u00a0 Reverend Bernard Keel is director of the University Memorial Chapel of Morgan State University, www.morgan – M-O-R-G-A-N \u2013 dot-edu, a mentor and faith based group facilitator.\u00a0 Ladies and gentlemen, this is D.C. Public Safety.\u00a0 Once again, we are extraordinarily appreciative of all the contact that you provide us, either through the show notes, the comments, and our four websites at media \u2013 M-E-D-I-A \u2013 dot-csosa.gov, or reach me directly via email, Leonard \u2013 L-E-O-N-A-R-D \u2013 dot-sipes \u2013 S-I-P-E-S – @csosa.gov, or follow us by twitter \u2013 twitter.com\/lensipes.\u00a0 I want everybody to have themselves a very, very pleasant day.<\/p>\n

[Audio Ends]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to DC Public Safety \u2013 radio and television shows on crime, criminal offenders and the criminal justice system. See http:\/\/media.csosa.gov for our television shows, blog and transcripts. We now average 200,000 requests a month. We welcome your comments or suggestions at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov or at Twitter at http:\/\/twitter.com\/lensipes. This radio program is available at http:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/audio\/2010\/04\/offender-and-victim-advocacy-is-there-a-middle-ground-dc-public-safety-220000-requests-a-month\/ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,11,16,18,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audiopodcast","category-faith-basedinitiatives","category-interviewswithstaff","category-reentry","category-victims-services","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pBoKk-9J","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1513,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions\/1513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/transcripts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}