by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
For 22 years, the City of Jacksonville has recognized people who have suffered crime and violence and the people who support them. To cap Jacksonville’s Victims’ Rights Week, the Mayor’s Victim Assistance Advisory Council (VAAC) held its annual Awards Luncheon Thursday to honor five of the city’s leading advocates and five of last year’s most courageous victims.
The 26-member council is made up of victims service agency directors, victim advocates and people who have been touched by crime. Richard Komando, circuit director of the Fourth Judicial Circuit and chair of the group, said, “A good portion of our recommendations come from the victims themselves.”
After fresh flowers were given to each of the victims at the luncheon, this year’s awards were presented in several categories.
Beverly McClain, president of Families of Slain Children Inc. received this year’s Frank G. Carrington Champion for Victims Award.
The 2008 Judicial Victim Advocate Award was presented to Assistant State Attorney Mark Borello.
The Media Award went to Shirley Shaw, editor of the Victims Advocate newspaper.
Officer Robin Waters of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office is assigned to the State Attorney’s Office Special Assault Division and was the recipient of the Law Enforcement Victim Advocate Award.
The 2008 Outstanding Victim Advocate Award was presented to Brenda Ellis, a victim services specialist in the City’s Sexual Assault Center.
In addition, five others were honored for their courage in overcoming victimization by violent crime: Sonia Huff, Carolyn Shoemaker, Robert Taylor, Margaret Weber and Eugene Wertz.
Prior to the awards ceremony, the VAAC hosted a seminar for victim service providers. The focus of the session was to explore how the youth in the community are affected by crime and what the community can do to protect its youngest members.
Chief Probation Officer Edgar Mathis, who has spent 37 years with the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, said despite the current perception, “Jacksonville’s juvenile crime is not as bad as you think when compared to other counties in the state.”
He said over the past five years, the number of crimes committed by youth in Jacksonville has actually declined by 9.7 percent, but the nature of the crimes has changed.
“Misdemeanor theft has been replaced by misdemeanor assault and battery as the most common crime committed by minors. Something has happened in our society for that to have happened,” said Mathis.
Betty Burney, chair of the Duval County School Board, said research she conducted while writing her book, “If These Chains Could Talk,” leads her to believe the school system can have a powerful impact to reduce crime and its effects on children. The book is a collection of letters from juveniles who were tried and convicted as adults.
“It’s my belief there is no child who is born to be a criminal. Something happens. They learn what they live. Children exposed to violence become violent,” she said.
Christine Rasche, an associate professor at the University of North Florida’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, agreed. She said the department analyzes every domestic homicide that occurs in the Fourth Judicial Circuit and offered some statistics concerning young victims.
From 1997-2006 children were present in 35 percent of domestic homicides (defined as being committed by an intimate partner or family member), which meant, said Rasche, “children watched or listened while their mothers, fathers or other loved ones were killed.”
It doesn’t take crime as serious as murder to have a powerful negative effect on a child, she added. According to the data, 22 percent of children who witnessed one or two acts of violence at home and 43 percent who witnessed five or more were later arrested as delinquents.
“When their homes are violent, chances increase their relationships with other people will be violent,” said Rasche.