Answer

Victim Advocacy

Although the standard education requirement for victim advocates in the state of Texas is a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice or a four-year criminology degree in addition to training in counselling and psychology, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice offers a foundational victim assistance training. This training is focused on service delivery for the victims, allowing those who are trained to get professional skills and competence needed assist victims overcome the experiences that came with the crimes they were associated with (Brubaker, 2019).  The Texas Victim Assistance Training (TVAT) trains certified victims’ assistance providers to those with less than 3 year experience.

Victim advocates generally support victims of a crime. They provide the victims with information that touches on their rights, provide emotional support, assists the victims to gain the needed help and resources to fill out the required crime victim forms. They are the ones who assist the eligible victims to apply to get assisted, work hand in hand with creditors, keep crime victims updated on what the status of their cases are, and let the victims know whether the accused people have been arrested and when they are released (McDermott & Garofalo, 2004). The adult victim is provided with all the information needed to make informed decisions in the cases with which they are involved.

Advocacy in a criminal matter involving an adult demands that the victim advocate deals directly with the victim, explains their rights to them and assist them to navigate the often treacherous field of criminal justice. It is the duty of the advocate to ensure that the victim is accorded all the needed legal and psychological support during and after the process. Advocacy in a criminal matter that involves a child on the other hand demands that the child’s caregiver takes charge of transacting business on behalf of the child victim. It is the duty of the caregiver to meet with the victim or family advocate to discuss and share all the information that has to do with the criminal proceedings.

While the victims advocate directly deals with the victim to inform, direct and possibly even counsel victims, the victims services agency at the prosecutor’s office has the role of reacting to issues that arise from the victims side with regards to the swift, fair and equitable provision of justice to the victims. They provide victim education, letting victims know how their cases will be handled (Brooks  & Burman, 2017). It is the role of such agencies to refer victims to the support services that they would need to navigate the criminal cases successfully. Such support services may include counselling, financial services or any form of legal aid. They in addition offer referrals meant to compensate victims after the completion of particular criminal cases. In general then, while the victims’ advocates directly champion the rights of the victims, the victims services agency ensures swift, respectful and compassionate response to all the victims.

The victims’ advocates are concerned with all the aspects of justice for the victims and survivors of crime. They work hard to ensure that the victims are legally, financially and psychologically sound from the effects of crime. In this regard then, they work hard for the victims to get justice through compensations and punishment to criminals. However, restorative justice demands that the victim does not have to rely on the sanction and punishment of offenders for justice to be done (Globokar et al. 2019). Personal accountability on the part of offenders, with the offenders providing critical information about the crime that would help the victims to get psychological closure and come to terms with the reality of the crime. Often, the victims may relish an opportunity to let the offenders know how the crimes affected them personally, and this chance is one that the victim advocacy can provide for the victims so that restorative justice is done.

.