‘Soft’ Interview Rooms Comfort Crime Survivors
A special room at the Charlottesville VA Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office for victims of crime is the most recent of 48 created and installed across the country by Project Beloved, a Texas-based nonprofit helping victims, especially sexual assault survivors, tell their stories.
Landwebs
A new ‘soft interview room’ at the Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office is designed to make a more comfortable place for victims to recall and discuss the traumatic events they’ve been through as prosecutors and police prepare criminal court cases, reports the Daily Progress. The Charlottesville room is the most recent of 48 created and installed across the country by Project Beloved, a Texas-based nonprofit helping victims, especially sexual assault survivors, tell their stories.
Tracy Matheson founded Project Beloved following the brutal rape and strangulation of her 22-year-old daughter Molly Jane. Matheson discovered other women had come forward with allegations against the same man before her daughter’s death but had negative experiences while talking about what happened that discouraged some of them from pursuing justice. The interview room is the second in Virginia, joining the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office. A third is being installed at Virginia Military Institute.
