victim inspired policing program

The Palm Bay Police Department made a decision to enhance victim status by developing a department philosophy referred to as “V.I.P.”, Victim Inspired Policing and its accompanied program entitled “Felony Follow Up.”  Under V.I.P. and its Felony Follow Up Program, all victims of felonies and specified misdemeanors outlined by policy are not re-contacted by the original responding officer or another uniform officer within 48 hours of the reported crime.  Many times, due to the traumatic circumstances at the time of the crime, victims tend to under-report information such as missing property, details of the crime and offender identifiers.  Responding officers must generate a “no additional information” entry or supplemental report recording any additional information uncovered.   As implied before, if no solvability factors exist, the criminal report was basically filed never to be seen again.  Now, under Palm Bay’s V.I.P. / Felony Follow Up Program, a trained police volunteer or “VCOP” is tasked to call all felony victims of cases sent to Investigations.  Volunteers are given a checklist of questions to ask victims of felony crimes.  The purpose of the questions is to again solicit any additional information to use in the investigation to properly assess losses and hopefully increase solvability factors.

Recently there has been much rhetoric about victim’s rights with many states passing laws and programs for compensation and mandating conferences between victims and prosecutors who must get consent from victims for plea negotiations or prosecutorial strategies.  Many of these programs are feel-good concessions so victims of crime have not lost only their property or well being, but their dignity over time.  Though the new V.I.P. / Felony Follow Up Program is a change in culture, it is really just a reassessment of basic law enforcement priorities.

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