Could Expanding Victim Services Aid Shooting Investigations?
A social scientist argues that to improve murder and shooting clearance rates, governments must provide wraparound protection for witnesses so they feel comfortable talking with law enforcement and testifying.
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In order to increase the success of shooting investigations, state, local, and the federal government must develop better strategies for protecting and supporting victims and witnesses of violent crime who face real dangers for cooperating with the criminal justice system, says Tom Scott in an op-ed for The Hill. A Social Scientist for the Center for Policing Research and Investigative Science, Scott points to two federal bills currently under consideration in Congress’s Judiciary committees that are meant to improve this situation: the Witness Security and Protection Grant Program Act of 2021 (WS&P) and the Violent Incident Clearance and Technological Investigative Methods Act of 2021 (VICTIM).
WS&P would provide competitive grants and technical assistance to state, tribal, and local governments to provide witness protection or assistance in court proceedings involving certain serious or organized crimes. VICTIM would provide grants to state, tribal, and local law enforcement agencies or prosecutors’ offices to improve murder and shooting clearance rates. While Scott argues that both bills suffer from limitations, solutions could be to allocate existing funding and combine the $30,000,000 from WS&P with the $100,000,000 from VICTIM to go towards a witness service provider while funding people’s safety measures.
