Cspan, 45 years and counting powered by cable. At our table this morning is the Vice President of the alliance for seeking justice, national director. We want to talk about resources for survivors of crimes. This is personal for you. Tell us your story. Thank you so much for having me on today. Back in 2009 id just become the first man in my family to ever graduate from college. I was on my way to play professional overseas but unfortunately i became a victim of gun connecticut. I was shot twice and my back and those bullets ended my professional basketball career and nearly my life. Like so many victims from the hospital back into the same community where the incident happened with no support, no services, no resourceses to recover from. That incident was changed my life like crime does with so many people with crime. Host what were you doing at the time of this and what were you doing in that community at that time . Guest just leaving the corner store in my neighborhood. Just weeks before i was supposed to go overseas to play professional basketball and that incident, my doctors told me about the physical challenges that i would have but nobody ever mentioned the psychological effect of being a victim or dealing with the ptsd, you know, the anxiety, the stress, the nightmares of that incident. But like so many victims, Law Enforcement came to visit me several times during that recovery process. But each time that they visited me, it was always about the case. They never asked me how i was doing. They never told me about any Victim Services that my family could seek out and get support. And they never even told me a Victim Advocate in their department that were supposed to work with victims like myself and my family were left to deal with that incident on our own. And that started this new journey of working with crime victims across the country. Host what resources were you looking for at the time . Guest like many crime victims, access to things like Mental Health. I was shot just blocks away from where i lived at. I would have loved to be able to get housing and relocation support to help me move away from that neighborhood, that traumatized myself and my family as well. In addition to that, every state having Victim Compensation program that pays for expenses like Mental Health, counseling, to help with the housing relocation support, but i was never made aware of none of those services, which is the experience of thousands of crime victims across the country of not getting the support, even the person that shot me was also a victim of gun violence four years before i got shot and the doctor that saved my life saved his life as well. Just like me, he was released from that same hospital back into that same community but with no support and i strongly feel like his unaddressed trauma played a huge role in my shooting years later. Host what evidence do you have that these resources are needed and on what scale . Guest i travel across the country and meeting with victims, fans with loved ones, and meeting victims with Domestic Violence and sexual assault, crime across the country, especially in communities that are most harmed by violence. Those communities and those individuals are least supported by the Justice System, are least supported by system. So Many Organizations that are doing incredible work helping victims navigate the Justice System, helping to provide grief counseling and support. So many of those organizations dont have the resources thats needed to help support crime victims. So our Organization Works to organize and train those survivors and organizations to be advocates to invest in more resources. Host why dont they have the resources . Guest when they look at crime and violence in this country, especially in communities of color that are most impacted by violence, we have been disrespected and disregarded for decades. The way that crime policy has been designed in this country, it doesnt protect the people who are most harmed by violence, and the resources that has been coming into communities for decades dont actually go to people that need it the most. So there are racial disparage that exists in Victim Services and who actually gets help or not. Host why arent they getting the resources . Guest so many policy barriers that exists. For example, the Victim Compensation program, every state have a Victim Compensation program to help pay for things like funeral and burial expenses and to when the housing relocation that i mentioned, to help change the door locks. Every sedate has that program and it is known as the last resort. If you dont have any resources to cover a funeral for your loved one who lost their life to violence, last program that exists to help people but the challenging with that is that we did a survey of thousands of crime victims across the country and over 96 of victims did not access the Victim Compensation program. So most people dont know about it. In order to be eligible, in some state, you have to file a Police Report within 48 hours or 72 hours after becoming a victim of a crime. If you meet that threshold, in some states you only have a year or two to apply for the program. Those are barriers that exists in policies. If you or a loved one is on probation or if you owe fines or fees, youre not eligible to access the Victim Compensation program and there are policies and barriers where Law Enforcement deem that you contribute to your own victim accusation. So youre not able to get access to compensation. So those are some of the barriers that exists. Most will not be able to access the program because of policy barriers. Host you were in the hospital there was a 48hour policy in your case. You were in the hospital for how long . Guest i was in the hospital for a week. And i didnt know about the Victim Compensation program until 10 years after i became a victim of a Violent Crime when i joined my organization. But i come from a family of victims. My father was shot and my older brother was shot and i have two cousins that were shot. And we all plenty of interactions with the justice. , but none that led to any help or services for us to deal with those experiences of being victims. Host we want our callers to join in. We want to hear your story or chime in. Remember all of you can text us, include your first name, city and state to 2027488003. So these policies, are they drafted on a city, county, state or federal level . Guest every state is unique. Every state is different. For example, in the state of michigan, we passed a law just last year to extend the time limit for victims to file for the program in places like florida, weve passed the law back in 2019 to remove some of those policy barriers. So at the federal level, there are guidance, but each guidelines but each state is different. So thats why ive dedicated my life to working with crime victims, training them to understand. To remove those barriers and increase access to Victim Compensation. Host how are your groups funded . Guest we are nonprofit organization. We get funded from foundations. We dont receive any government funding. We are grassroots organization. We have chapters of crime survivors which is our National Network of victims of crimes. Host tell us about, you mentioned this but your 2022 survivor speak report survey that you did. What did you find out . Guest yeah, in that report so we actually did this report back in 2016. It was the first time there was a survey that actually asks victims what were their views on safety injustice . In 2022, we did that very similar report again as well. Theres a few key findings that we find just from talking with crime victims on safety injustice. Most prefer a Justice System that focus on rehabilitation and shorter prison sentences rather than long sentences. The majority of crimes victims prefer that a Justice System focus more on things like prevention, Like Community supervision rather than locking people up for a long time but we also found out that the Justice System isnt helping crime victims. Host there is a victims of crime act. It was passed by congress in 1984 and amended in 1988 established the office for victims of crime which is charged by congress with administering the Crime Victims Fund that youve been talking about. The crime victims provides assistance and Compensation Program that offers support for those affected by Violent Crime. The crime victims funnce is over 1. 2 billion. Ishamoney getting allocated . Guest that one, you know, that money, theres not a lot of resources for crime victims. So when i joined my organization back in 2015, the Crime Victims Fund has increased from 745 million to about 2. 3 be. So the cap had quadrupled in revenue to support crime victims over the past few years, the revenue and the cap have been decreasing every year. So currently, we are in a Current Crisis when it comes to supporting crime victims and Many Organizations across the countries are having to shut their doors, having to decrease services because of the decrease the Crime Victims Fund. Host we have a caller from new jersey. Welcome to the conversation. Go ahead. Caller thank you so much for having me this morning. First off, mr. Thomas, i applaud you for your work. I do the same work here in north new jersey. And one thing i would love to just point out is that the victims the survivors of crime, those police that persecute those crimes, they are hardly ever held accountable. I deal with case after case where cops commit the horrific crimes and theres reposition of it basically other cities thats surrounding other areas, mr. Thomas. Second, this reaches a lot of survivors of crime, they do not get basic housing from skills, so just the support that they get from crimes. There are so many lack of resources that we do not have in our community. So applaud the work that you do and i apologize for you becoming a survivor of crime and anything that we can do in support your mission, were always there for you, brother, and thank you and have a good day. Guest thank you. And newark is doing incredible work as well. Host alicia, columbia, maryland, a survivor. Alicia. Caller hello, greta. I think im calling on the wrong line. Host oh, ok. Caller forgive me. Im so sorry about your situation that to happen to you. Im so sorry. Im nativeamerican and we need help we are in a situation where we do not allow our officials to prosecute outside of our reservation. They rape our women, they do the same with our girls and now, the illegals are coming into one of the reservations that i have heard last week into montana. And they are bringing drugs and since the reservation is large, they dont have enough police to patrol, you know, and those drug dealers are very smart. They call the police and say oh, we need help over here. And the police go there and of course, they do their dirty job elsewhere. So, what the Supreme Court and all the officials from washington have to do is get this done. Give us the authority to prosecute those who do awful stuff to us and weve been begging for this and there were two im sorry, im getting so loud host its so loud. Alicia, we understand. Guest yeah, and thank you for sharing that. And we do need to invest more in, you know, in policies. We need to invest more Holding People accountable. Accountability and healing and prevention is key into these issues. So we actually can, you know, provide the resources to invest in more from Violent Crime which is what we are hearing from native communities and communities of color instead of spending so much resources and incarcerating people for nonViolent Crimes as well. Host tom from indiana. Hi, tom. Are you a survivor . Caller yes, i am. Host ok. Would you care to share your story . Caller sure, ill share it its kind of related. I really think it is. Im going to try to make it fast. Several years ago, a person broke into my garage, stole a bicycle and a bunch of meat on my refrigerate. Aswad, i apologize. I know your case is a lot more serious than this. But its kind of related. The perpetrators or the thief broke into the house, stole my things. They arrested him. So the police did a very good job of catching him. I had a bicycle that was stolen. So they called me in to press charges. I had no idea who the thief was. So they told me and unbeknowing to me, he was arrested with a kid. Well, i was a teacher. I had the kid in my classroom. And i went to it says god, you cant put us in this position. So the other victim is the child. So i took it upon myself to not press charges but i wanted an alternative said to let him go. He stole my bicycle, but lets see if we can find an alternative. So they did send me to victim person. But the prosecutor assistant took me into a courtroom with a lot of judge and people sitting in a jury. Said look at this guy. Hes going to drop charges for this thief and i said oh, im not talking to you at that time. I got pretty disrupted with him. Went back, went to the main prosecutor. I said certainly you guys could do something. Well, they sent me to the Victim Advocate. I told the Victim Advocate, i said lets be creative here. I got this kid in school. He can hardly read. This father is not doesnt have a job. Lets give him some Community Service with this kid. Send him to the y or bring him to my school and in the hallway, he could tutor for his kids for two or three days a week which is a lot better than going to jail. Host ok, tom, im going to have aswad thomas jump in. Thank you. Caller and thank you so much for sharing your story. Trauma imall of trauma impacts all of us. We prefer different alternatives rather than just locking people up. It is the important work that our organization is doing across the country. And what justice looks like. So it is our goals, our alternatives to incarceration. Host robert in connecticut. Robert . Caller yes. I guess i want to ask him some questions. Will he give me some personal information about he said hes from connecticut. Is he i believe he said hes from harford, connecticut. So, i wanted to ask him questions about that. Host and what about it, robert . Caller ok. Ok. I just want to get right to my point without being disrespectful to him. I used to run there because i was a drug addict all through hartford. I guess my question is hes a college graduate. He comes home. The question would be does he have a car . And he must know the areas that he shouldnt be going to. So, i dont want to put it on him. He probably was an innocent guy. He got shot. I want him to know if he had enough sense not to go down that corner store. Guest thank you for asking that question. Yes, i am from hartford, connecticut. I grew up from the same street where i got shot at. A community that has been devastated by poverty and devastated by a lack of education opportunity and lack of job. The community has been riddled by crime and violence for decades. One thing that i haventeen in that Community Growing up and including when i got shot is i invested in things that actually keep communities safe. Invested in programs, invested in helping people get back to work. But most importantly, invested in things that help people heal and recover from violence. And those are the things that a Community Like hartford and so many communities across the country need in wellbeing which stops the violence and helping people get back to work and also get housing as well. Host i dont know if you asked this question but maybe you can say do people have a choice about where they are at that time . Where theyre living in these communities . Guest you know, i was shot in the community that i grew up. I love my community. And my story is not unique. There are so many crime victims of gun violence and Domestic Violence and sexual assault. For years, we invested billions of dollars into the Justice System. Billions of incarceration but were not safer. What if we were to take a dollar on and reverse that and invest more into communities . Invest more in schools, invest more in programs . We can, you know, prevent a lot of crime from happening but unfortunately, our priorities are wrong in this country. Were not invested in communities but instead, were invested in a Justice System that doesnt keep us safe. Host a question from david. I was a crime victim twice my life. Guest every state has a Victim Compensation program. You can go to the website to look up where you can get counseling and support through the Victim Compensation program. And so many victims like myself, i had thoughts of retaliation. That is often a natural response when you have been harmed. But the things that changed my life, that teenager was a victim of gun violence at 14 years old. And as a result, he lost sight in his left eye. And just like me, he reached back into that same community with no support. And i strongly believe his unaddressed trauma played a huge role in my incident years later. That leads the victimization to incarceration pipeline. Host they have been a victim themselves. Is that true . Nine of 10 have been a victim of Violent Crime long before they came in contact with the Justice System and they were not recognized as victim then and that trauma caused people to lash out, often cause people to become victims again or become in contact with the justice which we see far too often. Host danielle . Caller yes. Host good morning to you. Caller good morning. So, i just wanted to put a little bit of my story out there. In 2018, my house was broken into and i was pretty much almost killed. The person who did it, they were arrested for attempted murder homicide, premeditated. Now, i have thought and thought and thought for years in the court fought and fought and fought in the court system. The minimum was 1520 years the experience i had was absolutely horrible. The state prosecutor basically had me, you know, say they were tired of dealing with the case. The person who had done this to me had basically, revolves around attorneys and lawyers and all that other stuff going through. I guess he knew every loophole in the book to go for just to drag this out and drag this out and drag this out. And basically, he only got 12 years. Now, the damages that i have from that, i mean, i had the back of my head split open. I spent six months with no memory. And its people like me who are scared of those people getting out because even though he did get put in jail and was incarcerated, there was threat letters coming to my home. He had actually had people come out and he was charged with this as well but no added time, took the lug nuts off my vehicle. Thank god i wasnt driving my vehicle when it happened but i lost my tires. You had people like me who are terrified when that due date comes for them to come out of that jail. And theres nothing left for me to do about it, you know . I mean, he had a conflict of interest with the attorney because he claims he was a satanist. And now, i have three children. And so, at this point in time, like its a literal fear of this person coming out and coming back to find me. And i dont know what else there is to do, you know . So some of these people that have done things like this, i do believe should be basically put away as long as you possibly can. Ive gone to the point of even thinking that i need to change my last name. Host ok. Danielles story there. Aswad thomas. Guest and thank you for sharing, danielle. And this experience of so many crime victims that havent found justice in our criminal Justice System and justice should be rooted in accountability and in healing. When you are a victim of a crime as i experienced as danielle just mentioned, these are longterm affects that you have to deal with every single day. The Mental Health challenges that we experience were also just a spear as well. For most crime victims, there are two things that we want the most. We want what happened to us to never happen again and we want what happened to us to never happen to someone else. So we do need to hold people up accountable. We also need to help crime victims like myself and danielle heal and recover and thats where we need to invest our resource in helping crime victims get back to the safety and support that they need. Host aswad thomas, why are you in washington, d. C. . Guest im here in washington, d. C. As i mentioned, the offices victims of crimes is doing incredible work and supporting a lot of states and helping organizations in crime victims access services. So im here in d. C. Tomorrow as part of National Crime victims rights. I will be receiving a award as a 2024 survivor for the work that ive been doing across the country and the work that my organization has been doing alliance for safety and justice this past decade. Its great to be in washington, d. C. To celebrate crime victims week and to be acknowledged for the work that ive been doing this past decade of my life, which is to help crime victims like me across the country get access and the support that they need. Host thank you to coming to the washington journal and being a part of the conversation this morning. Guest thank you so much for having me. Host aswad thomas is the Vice President for alliance for safety and justice and the director of the crime friday nights, watching cspans 2024 campaign trail, a weekly roundup of cspans campaign coverage, providing onestop shop to discover what the candidates across the country are saying to voters along with firsthand accounts from political reporters, updated poll numbers, fundraising data and campaign ads. Lexi spent 2024 campaign trail friday nights at 7 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan, online at cspan. Org for download as a podcast on cspan now, our free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. Cspan, your unfiltered view of politics. American history tv saturdays on cspan2, exploring the people and events that tell the american story at 6 p. M. Eastern, the ellingtons coauthor of fabric of a nation, the history talk about the advance basement u. S. History exam and have exam is structured , providing strategies for answering questions and analyzing historical documents. At 7 p. M. Eastern, our series congress investigates looks at historic congressional investigations that led to changes in policy and law. In 1973 and 74, lawmakers examined events surrounding the 1972 breakin at the Democratic National headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in washington, d. C. It led to the resignation and president Richard Nixon in august of 1974. At 8 p. M. Eastern on lectures in history, university of kansas Political Committee occasions Professor Robert rowland from Ronald Reagans address to british parliament, exploring the american story, watch American History tv saturdays on cspan2 and find a full schedule on our program guidetch online anytime at cspan. Org history. Cspan now is a mobile app showing you what is happening in washington live and ondemand. Keep up with floor proceedings and hearings from the u. S. Congress, white house events, the courts, campaigns, and more from the world of politics, all at your fingertips. You can also stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for cspans tv networks and cspan radio, plus a variety of compelling podcasts. Cspan now is available at the apple store and google play. Download it for free today. Cspan now, your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. The house will be in order. This year, cspan celebrates years of covering Congress Like 45 no other. Since 1979, we been your primary source for capitol hill, providing balanced, unfiltered coverage of government. We take it to where the policies are debated and decided with the support of americas cable companies. Cspan, 45 years and counting powered by cable. Cia director william byrd highlights u. S. Foreign aid to ukraine and the role it could play in repelling russias invasion during an event in dallas. He also discussed china, the situation in the middle east and u. S. Intelligence sharing