CVC in the Media
"Oftentimes we see folks in the Order of Protection Office, just saw someone yesterday. A dad was filing against his three adult children who were threatening to harm him," said Pohl.
Pohl said domestic violence among family members is something the organization sees often.
"We were just talking to one of our advocates, who noticed that their numbers spiked right around Thanksgiving time even more than last year. When we come to these times of the year where we're expected to come home for the holidays, this is definitely a time where we could see that spike," she said. (Author: Megan Kernan
Published: 7:12 PM CST December 19, 2024)
The Crime Victim Center of St. Louis has multiple programs to support victims of crime. Crime Victim Center’s programs range from direct services to crime victims as well as “creating awareness and change within the systems they encounter.” (Author: Jennifer Somers
Published: 6:21 AM CST December 11, 2024)
"When you think of the ripple effects that violence, fatal or non-fatal has, like that number grows and so many people are affected," said Kat Cocivera, a Youth Therapist at Crime Victim Center in St. Louis.
For 50 years, the nonprofit has provided trauma-focused counseling, support and other services to crime victims and their families.
"Whenever they are ready to reach out and to have someone kind of open a door and help them know the next step, we want them to know that we are here for them," added Cocivera. (Author: Robert Townsend
Published: 9:39 PM CDT May 21, 2021)

Katie Dalton, whose nonprofit Crime Victim Center is in St. Louis, said her city saw more than 200 homicides in 2019 for the first time since the 1970s.
“We are back to right where we began.”
Her organization works to empower people impacted by crime, from the victim to their family, witnesses and neighbors.
She said that in her city, part of the problem is that the police department has some of the lowest pay in the state and as a result, is down some 200 officers.
Dalton is more optimistic about the national picture.
“I try to pay attention nationally,” she said. “It is interesting. There are definitely a lot of efforts happening to get crimes down, a lot of push within police departments to use newer technology to help solve crime. I feel like if they solve more crime, it can be a deterrent.”
As for reporting being down, Dalton said, that could grow out of a lack of trust in police.
“There are definitely some communities that have seen a lot of violence through police departments, which deters people from calling the police, especially in certain areas. But it goes the other way, too. If areas are feeling safer, crime will shift to another region.”
St. Louis gets a lot of attention for being "America's Most Dangerous City." But what happens to the victims of crime once the police tape is gone and the media move on to cover the next atrocity? More often than not, the victims are left in the lurch, paralyzed emotionally, if not physically. That's where the Crime Victim Advocacy Center steps in, reaching out to assist those people whose lives have been turned upside down by murder, rape, assault and even lesser crimes such as burglary and identify theft. Founded in 1972 as the nation's first victim-services agency, the Crime Victim Advocacy Center serves as a clearing-house for victims, offering counseling, support groups, information referrals and assistance in filing for state victim compensation. The center sees victims as more than just statistics used to compile rankings. They see them as people who deserve both a voice and a sympathetic ear.
PROTECTING THE RIGHTS OF CRIME VICTIMS
HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION, FEDERALISM, AND PROPERTY RIGHTS of the COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION
on EXPLORING THE ROLE THAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CAN HAVE IN SAFEGUARDING THE RIGHTS OF VICTIMS AND EXAMINING THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF VICTIMS
ST. LOUIS, MO MAY 1, 1999
STATEMENT OF JOE TAYLOR Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Senator. I'm proud to be here this morning representing an institution that has helped thousands of people regain dignity they lost due to a criminal act. Aid For Victims of Crime was the first victims assistance program founded in this country. Carol Vittert, our founder and current Board member, began what is now known as Aid for Victims of Crime by gathering daily police reports from local law enforcement. She and other volunteers would go knock on the doors of crime victims, reaching out to their needs. Aid for Victims of Crime now plays an integral role in victims services locally, regionally, State, and nationwide. Each year AVC serves between 1,500 and 2,000 victims of crime in the St. Louis area. The range of services available is so broad, and often requiring improvisation, they cannot be sufficiently cataloged in this forum. However, by way of example, I would like to describe how AVC responded to two victims who called the agency for help. These illustrations are relevant to the hearing this morning as they involve victims of nonviolent crime. A woman in her 30's, a professional woman, contacted AVC after her home was burglarized. AVC staff went to her house with plywood and nails to temporarily secure the broken window through which the intruder entered. Staff noticed that the victim was physically shaking as if she had been victimized by violent crime. AVC staff offered her services as if she had been victimized by violent crime. The victim told Ed Stout, our executive director, that this invasion was the closest thing to her being raped as she ever could imagine experiencing. In another instance, an educated woman and neighborhood leader from North St. Louis was cheated out of several thousand dollars by two men who talked her into investing in a ``no- lose'' situation. She almost immediately realized she had been deceived and reported the crime. During the ensuing criminal prosecution, Aid for Victims of Crime staff pursued restitution on her behalf. The victim did not know she might be entitled to such a remedy, but due to the embarrassment and guilt she felt for allowing herself to be so deceived, she probably would have never asked to what, if anything, she was entitled. Regionally, AVC staff initiated and now actively correlates a three-county crises response team that organized services of 20 agencies when responding to crises in the workplace, in neighborhoods, and in corporations of all sizes. This crisis response team supplied valuable services to help our community, the campus of Washington University, and family members deal with the trauma of Melissa Aptman's brutal murder and her friend's abduction and unspeakable attack in May 1995. The same crisis response team also responded to the suffering of St. Louis employees of TWA in the aftermath of the crash of Flight 800 en route to Paris in 1996. Statewide, AVC participated and is active in the MoVA, the Missouri Victims' Assistance Network, which has been instrumental in making victims part of the criminal justice system, rather than an appendage to the system. MoVA, as was already testified to, was integral in supporting and passing the 1992 amendment to the Missouri Constitution guaranteeing rights in this State. Finally, nationally, AVC have been active and well represented on the Board of NOVA, the National Organization for Victims' Assistance. NOVA's accomplishments are just too numerous to address here today. I would like to recognize Ed Stout, our Executive Director, for his never-ending efforts to restore dignity to all those victimized by crime. Senator Ashcroft. Is Mr. Stout here? Mr. Taylor. He is not able to be with us today. He is out of town. Senator Ashcroft. If he were, I would have asked him to stand up. Mr. Taylor. Right. If asked, few, if any, would report being against victims' rights in theory. There are many, however, that oppose extending Constitutionally recognized rights to victims of nonviolent crimes for fear that the already overloaded criminal justice system would grind to a halt if these victims were allowed to participate and to receive reasonable notice of criminal proceedings. This attitude is often heard by victims of nonviolent crimes as the system telling them, of course we support victims' rights, as long as they don't get in our way. The uncomfortable truth, however, is that this attitude adds to the trauma already suffered by the victim. All too often, the victims of nonviolent crime suffer the same type and intensity of trauma as those victimized by rape, robbery, and assault. These victims will perceive the crime against them as life- threatening. Burglaries, for instance, can shatter the family fabric. Their victims are infused with feelings of vulnerability and fear for years beyond the actual crime. ``What if'' questions overflow their thoughts. What if my family had returned home too early? What if they come back? How many times have we heard of the devastation caused by the likes of telemarketing fraud committed against our elderly, as you spoke of earlier? These crimes go far beyond the financial losses alone. The victims' fears must be heard over those whose fears are simply an inconvenience to our justice system. Fundamental rights do not come free. Ask anyone who has ever fought for the right to vote or for the right to simply be free of oppression. Rights do not come without pain and sacrifice. Moreover, those anxious individuals opposed to guaranteeing the rights of all victims are not considering the success in those States that have. Reports from the States where victims' rights amendments have been implemented show that the system is not bogged down as a result. And, in fact, the system may become more efficient because those victims whose rights are being honored are inherently going to be more cooperative and responsive to the system's needs. A constitutional amendment is not taken lightly by our Government or by those governed. Victims of all crimes have earned basic fundamental rights, and victims of nonviolent crime represent over 80 percent of all crime victims. If we only guarantee those rights for the vast minority of crime victims, we will only engender a greater lack of respect for the criminal judicial system by those precluded from participation. Thank you. Senator Ashcroft. Thank you very much.

A City Where There Is Help for the Criminal's Helpless Victim
By Judy Klemesrud Special to The New York Times
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April 4, 1975
ST. LOUIS—Back in 1972, Carol Vittert, a wealthy young suburban housewife with both a social conscience and time on her hands, decided she wanted to do something to help people. Just what, she didn't know—except that she wanted it to be in an area “where nothing had really been done before.”
Her brainchild came to her one day after reading about a Chicago juvenile court program that utilized neighborhood volunteers. Mrs. Vittert, now 27 years old, decided to use the same approach in helping the forgotten persons of crime—the victims and their families.
And so she founded Aid to. Victims of Crime, a largely volunteer group that works with the poor, elderly and handicapped victims of violent crime and their families in the inner city of St. Louis. The organization is believed to be one of the first of its kind in the country, although several others have sprung up since it was founded in November, 1972.
The people we help are those most hurt by crime,” Mrs. Vittert, who has short cropped blonde hair and the cherubic face of a Big 10 cheerleader, said the other day. “They are the people who don't have carfare, insurance or medical insurance. And they don't know what to do when crime hits them.”
Aid to Victims of Crime works this way: Every morning, the three paid staff members at the group's headquarters, 812 Olive Street, receive from the police the names of crime victims the day before in the three high-crime precincts that have been selected for the project.
The staff members then assign the cases to volunteers living in the victims' neighborhoods, and the volunteers then contact the victims and try to help them in any way within agency guidelines.
The program's approach is a “service concept rather than a compensation concept,” according to Anna Forder, a lawyer who is the program's director. “About the most we can give moneywise is $35 for each victim.”
Among the services the volunteers offer include:
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Helping the victims or their families get in touch with public or private agencies, such as the welfare office, the food stamp office and hospitals.
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Helping a victim get credit payments extended when there is a loss of money or job.
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Contacting the victim's employer to ask him to hold the victim's job open and/ or allow paid time off for court appearances.
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Providing child care and emergency food and clothing.
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Arranging funerals.
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Helping the victim find a new job and new home, if necessary.
Aid to Victims of Crime was financed through private donations until March, 1974, when it received a $25,000 grant‐ from Lilly Endowment through the St. Louis Jaycees. Another $22,000 from Lilly was given last month, along with $4,000 from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration.
So far this year, 428 crime victims have been contacted, Miss Forder said, and 99 have been given tangible help. Most of the victims are black, as are most of the 70 volunteers who work with them.
One typical victim was Barbara Harris, a 36‐year‐old unmarried mother of eight who lives in a public housing project on the city's South Side. Last June, Miss Harris's purse containing a $180 welfare check and $81 worth of food stamps was snatched as she was walking to a grocery store near her home.
“I was really worried,” she said, as she sat in her living room the other day. “There was no food in the house for the kids to eat, and I didn't know what I was going to do.”
The next day, she was contacted by a volunteer from Aid to Victims of Crime, who brought her $25 worth of groceries and drove her downtown for some free food stamps. The volunteer also called Miss Harris's landlord and the furniture store where she owed money, and explained why she wouldn't be able to make her payments that month.
Today, Miss Harris is a volunteer for the program, calling on neighbors who have also been crime victims.
“I do it because I appreciate what was done for me,” she said. “And I really like helping other people with the same problem.”
Whenever there is no volunteer in an area where a victim lives, Ann Slaughter, the program's outreach worker and the only black on the paid staff, makes the visit herself. She has, among other things, helped a grieving widow plan her husband's funeral; stayed in a victim's house so his family could attend his funeral with no fears that their belongings would be stolen; helped a grandmother pick out a suit of clothes for her slain grandson, and found a fearful rape victim another job in a new neighborhood.
She drove another rape victim, a thin, 22‐year‐old named Eunice, to see a doctor after Eunice complained about the way she had been treated at a city hospital.
“They were really rude to me,” Eunice said, sitting in her mother's apartment. “They didn't give me any information at all about venereal disease, and even the clerk who took down tne information was snotty.”
Mrs. Vittert, the program's founder, was herself a victim of violent crime in 1973. After visiting a male victim who had been badly beaten, she was hit in the stomach and knocked unconscious on the sidewalk in front of the man's house. When she came to, she drove herself to her doctor.
“That situation made me realize the value of neighborhood volunteers,” she said. “The man I had gone to see was a drug pusher who had invaded somebody else's territory. I didn't know, that, but the people in the neighborhood would have.”
Mrs. Vittert was one of 10 young women who won Mademoiselle magazine awards for 1974 for “outstanding achievements.” She is a graduate of Goucher College, and worked for the food stamp program in Washington, D. C. before marrying her husband, Mark, now 27, a wealthy businessman who starts and sells new companies. They live in suburban Clayton, Mo.
Mrs. Vittert stressed that the purpose of her program was not to get tougher sentences for criminals—only to help the victims.
She said that ideally, she would like to see the Federal Government enact a crime victim's compensation law, something that only 13 states now have. Her own state, Missouri, does not have such a law.
New York State does have a Crime Victim's Compensation Act, which reimburses an innocent victim of crime for out‐of‐pocket medical expenses and for salary loss up to $135 a week, up to a maximum of $15,000. It also provides a $15,000 death benefit to the victim's survivors, plus a funeral expense of $1,500.
Among the groups aiding crime victims in the New York area are the Crime Victims Service Center, at 1500 Waters Place, in the Bronx, which aids Bronx victims; and the Vera Institute of Justice, which in June will begin a $1.4‐million program in Brooklyn, called the Brooklyn Victim/Witness Assistance Program. Both programs are funded by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration.
“I'd like to see more and more of these programs started,” Mrs. Vittert said. “It's really easy to start one. The only danger is that some. people might start them only to prosecute the criminals. Things like that can really turn into vigilantism”