A national program that brings survivors of violent crimes to lead advocacy efforts for criminal justice reform comes to Orlando.
Group urges victims to lead criminal-justice reform effort
Agnes Furey, who works with survivors of violent crime, knows what it’s like to get the proverbial telephone call.
She got hers in 1998, when authorities delivered the news that her 40-year-old daughter and 6-year-old grandson were killed in their Sarasota apartment.
“I can’t change what happened,” said Furey, 80, who lives in Tallahassee. “What I can do is change it going forward.”
A few months ago, Furey helped found one of seven Florida chapters of Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice, a program run by the national nonprofit Alliance for Safety and Justice.
The organization, which is active in seven other states, encourages crime survivors to lead the effort for criminal-justice reform.
Membership director Aswad Thomas said the group places prevention and healing at the forefront, rather than focusing on incarceration.
“We try to get survivors together, to get out of a place of being kind of incapacitated,” Furey said. “Without somebody acknowledging that trauma, it festers.”
Furey said she believes “hurt people hurt people.” Years after losing her two family members, she forgave their killer and compiled a book of letters they exchanged while he was serving time in prison.
She also believes targeting the people who experience “the ripples of the trauma” can help break a cycle of violence. And she thinks the sooner it happens, the better.
“Too often, we ignore it and we think, ‘The kids don’t know.’ But the kids do know … we need to acknowledge it,” Furey said.
Survivors met Oct. 21 in Orlando at South Side Church of Christ for the city’s chapter prelaunch meeting.
“What we’re hearing from people in Orlando is that many victims don’t get access to resources,” Thomas said. “Many victims don’t even know these resources exist.”
The Orlando Police Department hands out a 14-page victims’ rights booklet after every incident. The pamphlet includes information on restitution, what services are available for survivors and details about the Crime Victims’ Compensation Fund.
The department works closely with the Victim Service Center of Central Florida and Harbor House, a domestic-violence shelter, Orlando police spokeswoman Michelle Guido said.
Kristin Ford, a spokeswoman for the Alliance for Safety and Justice, said all the Florida chapters — in Miami, St. Petersburg, Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa and Dade City — will host healing circles, workshops, training, resource fairs and opportunities for victims to meet with law enforcement and state officials.
Furey, who has long been an advocate for crime survivors, argues that for every homicide, about 100 people are affected
and become secondary survivors.
Victims and survivors should have a say in criminal-justice reform, Furey said. But available programs, she says, usually are limited to primary victims.
Lui Damiani, executive director at the Victims Service Center in Orlando, agrees that connecting crime victims to the resources they need is always a challenge. But “Pulse was a game-changer,” he says, and more people have asked for help from the center since.
“Nobody likes to think of themselves as a victim, but once they do, then they can access these services,” Damiani said. “I think there’s more awareness than there’s ever been.”
About half of the center’s efforts are geared to survivors of sexual assault, Damiani said. He said he thinks women who have recently come out with stories alleging inappropriate behavior from powerful public figures have prompted a historic response from victims.
So far this month, Damiani said, the center has responded to 39 cases, more than ever in the same amount of time since it opened in 1999.
Furey says the new chapters’ approach is not the only answer to helping break a cycle of violence, but it is an essential part of it.
“We need to expand our vision on what a stakeholder is in the criminal-justice system,” she said.