12. Working with Victims and Survivors

A. COSA are Accountable to the Community

Accountability simply means that people are answerable to one another for their behavior. In this sense accountability is a defining element of community. Circles of Support and Accountability ask each of its core members and their volunteers to remain accountable to each other, to their Board of Directors, and ultimately to the community. One way to be accountable is to invite members of the community, including representatives of the victim and survivors' community, to be part of the Advisory Board or to the Board of Directors.

The core member is challenged to be accountable to the COSA and through it to the community. In time, as the COSA presence in the core member's life diminishes, the core member becomes more directly accountable to the community. Individual COSA volunteers are also accountable to the COSA, and to the core member, as well as to their community.

Accountability flows from responsibility. Living responsibly means that one accepts recognizes the need to account for one's behavior within the context of one's relationships with others, and through those relationships, to the community in which one lives. Our conceptions of freedom", democratic society and lawful behavior are founded on the principles of responsibility and accountability.

A commitment to be accountable should be clearly stated to victims and survivors groups. However, COSA organizers should expect that members of the survivors and victims community might receive their message with skepticism and reservation, even when properly delivered. They are looking for positive results. Many citizens may adopt a "wait and see" attitude. Healthy relationships based on trust and friendships often take time.

Nevertheless, the COSA should remind itself and any survivor groups that the purpose of working together is not to scold, intimidate or punish the core member. Offering support through friendship, regular COSA meetings, covenanted relationships, responsibility and accountability, remain as the basic principles of a COSA.

B. Victims and Survivors and the Criminal Justice System

A COSA should approach victims and survivors agencies with respect and with an understanding of their position in the community. It should understand that these groups have traditionally not been invited to participate in the formal justice system or in making any plans involving offenders.

Many victims have experienced the criminal justice system as being primarily devoted to the needs of offenders. They often feel neglected and observe that billions of dollars are spent on an offender-focused criminal justice system while the needs of survivors and victims of crime appear to be overlooked. Many groups do not see themselves operating within that system that historically has dedicated few resources to the needs of victims.

Some survivors and victims' groups may feel re-victimized by the criminal justice system. If the criminal justice system is perceived to be exclusively dedicated to the needs of offenders to the detriment of victims, perhaps it is reasonable to expect that a COSA, which also works exclusively with former offenders, might be seen as just another extension of the criminal justice system. It might be treated with the same fear, anger and suspicion.

C. Clear statements of intent

Many victims and their representatives may believe that COSA are little more than "a good deal for offenders" with little to offer victims. Simply asking victims and survivors groups for their assistance in a COSA project without a genuine understanding and concern for their needs and their perspective is likely to meet with an unfavorable response.

Clear, consistent, concise messages enhance communications. The needs of victims and survivors should be addressed first. The primary goal of COSA should be explained, that of desiring to work for safer communities with no more victims. That goal is achieved by assisting core members re-enter their communities with support and with accountability.

D. Victims are Distinct Individuals

A common error is to include the needs of individual survivors and victims together with those of the community as a whole. Such a practice blurs the individuality, distinct person-hood, and the identity of survivors. They and their needs can become lost in the rhetoric around an indistinct, ill-defined and largely faceless community.

E. Community as Victim

Nevertheless, an appreciation of the community as a "victim" in need of protection also needs expression. Within this community there are spouses, children, family members, classmates, members of church congregations, friends, and associates of both survivors and offenders. All of these people are affected in a variety of ways by sexual offending behavior. Integration, re-entry or restoration, require that the needs of all these sometimes-competing interests be acknowledged if not directly addressed.

Within this wider context, the needs of offenders can be introduced and discussed. The message that must be delivered is the commitment of COSA to work towards having safer and healthier communities with no more victims.

F. Victims, Survivors and Offenders - Personal Responsibility

During the pre-release phase of meeting with the core member, it is important to ask the question of what it would mean to "make things right" with the community, and in particular with the victim(s). The core member should be challenged to reflect on these issues and be prepared to talk about them at the next meeting. As a means of reflection, for instance, the core member might be asked to consider what could be offered in the way of concrete restitution.

G. Contacting Victims - Victim/Offender Reconciliation

In previous chapter's (i.e. see "Screening Guidelines" in Chapter 6, above) it was stated that core members might consider having the COSA contact their victim(s) and/or survivors. This is a hypothetical question only!

In fact, COSA must never contact the core member's victim(s) or those who have survived the assault(s). Whenever a core member desires to make amends with a victim, the core member must be directed to an appropriate, accredited, Victim Offender Reconciliation Program (VORP). This should be strongly encouraged if the core member makes such a request. It is best if a victim services worker can be contacted prior to the offender's release. No COSA should ever attempt such a process on its own, as it is an extensive process beyond the mandate of a COSA.

H. Professional Reconciliation Service Providers

Reconciliation between a core member and any victim(s) is best referred to these professionals who may be supportive of COSA, such as accredited Victim Offender Reconciliation Programs. The core member should discuss these issues with a treatment provider. The discussion about victims and survivors, however, is a legitimate conversation for COSA and should be encouraged. The COSA should be concerned when a core member does not want to talk about those that have been harmed.

All COSA organizations should be mindful that victims and survivors are usually represented in their communities through a variety of governmental organizations such as Police and Crown Victims Services Units. Parole offices and correctional institutions have their own victim's service officers. As well, a number of private and non-governmental organizations, such as sexual assault centres and the Victim's Voice, operate in many communities. A COSA should include the local victim and/or survivor representatives in the early planning stages of their project. If possible, representatives from these groups should be asked to participate in the training of volunteers and to be part of any steering committees organized to guide the formation of a COSA project in the community.

Given the increasing focus on the needs of victims and survivors brought about by the development of Restorative Justice Initiatives and through political mandates, a COSA must never act unilaterally regarding victims' issues.

I. Survivors in Three-D

In a 2001 address to an International Conference on Restorative Justice ("Imagining The Future", Winchester, England, March 31, 2001) Howard Zehr suggested that when people are victimized, they experience three things, which he referred to as the "Three D's" of Victims' needs.

• D1 Disconnection
• D2 Disorder
• D3 Disempowerment

To address these, Zehr identified five things survivors need:

• Safety: Survivors of criminal victimization need both emotional and physical safety.
• Restitution: The "symbolic nature" of restitution is as important, maybe even more important, because the act of making restitution offers the survivor vindication, which is central to the recovery process for victims of crime.
• Truth Telling: Survivors need to tell their stories in their own words, to relate their experience as they know it today.
• Re-empowerment: Essential to survivors of criminal victimization is the ability to take back control over their own lives. For example, they need to find release from overpowering and/or recurring dreams.
• Questions: Survivors need answers to their questions.

J. Survivors Need Answers to their Questions

Possible answers to survivors' questions can become points of discussion between a COSA and the core member. Following are some questions a survivor might have. The group should try to add to this list.

• Why did you attack me (or my child)?
• Was there something about me (my family, my child) that made you notice me?
• Are you willing to change?
• Have you changed?
• If you changed, how do I know?
• Why should I believe you?
• How do I know you will never, ever, do this again to anybody else?
• Have you ever thought about what I went through, what am I still going through?
• Why should I give you any chances at all?
• Can you understand how absolutely angry I am?
• You say you want to live in my community, but what have you to offer that will make me feel that I (my children, my friends) will be safe with you around?

K. Is it "Saying I am Sorry," or "I Need Something More From You?"

Some core members have expressed a desire to contact their victims to apologize. This may reflect a healthy attitude based in remorse and a desire to make things right. The COSA, however, should ask the core member about his motivation. A few might say that they want to say they are sorry and to be forgiven. A COSA should help a core member examine his motivation. A need to apologize or a need for forgiveness expressed incorrectly can fulfill a need for the core member, but be offensive to the survivor.

For example, a core member once said that he wanted his victim to forgive him because if she did not, she could not be forgiven by God and therefore would miss out on her own salvation and resurrection. This core member had clearly not internalized the issues of power and control, boundaries and privacy, some of the hallmarks of sexual offending.

While a desire to apologize and then to be forgiven is a natural desire and even an expression of a healthy recognition of the harm one has caused, some core members may need to understand that their victim will never forgive them. A victim's forgiveness is deeply personal. Among many other things, a core member's emotional and spiritual well-being should include a full understanding of the harm they have caused, but should not depend or be based on a need to be forgiven by the victim(s). Indeed, asking one's victim for forgiveness is like asking for yet one more thing from that person from whom so much has already been taken.