LUBBOCK, Texas — The Crime Victim Coalition of West Texas held it’s second conference in Lubbock on Tuesday.
The coalition consists of local law enforcement agencies and non- profit groups that help crime victims in need.
The conference was held as a training for the agencies to gather new information and resources to better assist crime victims.
President of Crime Victim Coalition of West Texas, Kristi Thompson, told EverythingLubbock.com something as just simple terminology can help crime victims when explaining legal matters.
“Acronyms that you hear when you’re dealing with the legal system that normal person doesn’t know.” Thompson said, ” And so victim victim advocates need to be able to give that information to their clients. The legal system is very complicated, and I’m sure everyone knows that it’s very, very complicated. And so the advocates help to set expectations and to help the victims through the process. They also help to empower the victim to have a voice in their stories and in their case, whatever the case may be.”
Agencies such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D) said they are grateful for these conferences.
Dawn Bevan from M.A.D.D. said, “there was a lot of things in that that I had not heard of before, even though I’ve been working for MADD for almost 18 years and there’s some terms I’ve never heard of. So there’s always information in the legal justice and criminal justice system that you just don’t know about”
Thompson said the overall goal of the conference is to get the law enforcement agencies and non-profit groups better connected so they can refer the crime victims to one another, if they need a certain organization’s help.
