Victims of Crime Encouraged to Access VSB Services

Jamaicans who are victims of crime are being encouraged to take advantage of the support programmes and services available to them from the Victim Services Branch (VSB) of the Ministry of Justice.

Director of the VSB, Dionne-Dawn Binns, told JIS News that in addition to providing emotional support and counselling to deal with the trauma that often follows a crime, the Branch also aims to prevent acts of revenge.

“We assist persons to understand that if someone harms them, they don’t need to look to harm that individual or whomever else is connected to the individual in return. When a person experiences a crime, they go through a range of traumatic symptoms, and sometimes they harbour sorts of revenge retribution, so we provide an avenue for persons to receive therapeutic intervention to be able to come and talk about what they are experiencing that will help to lead to healing from the incident that would have occurred,” she said.

Ms. Binns noted, further, that while a great number of the matters handled by the VSB are related to sexual crimes, persons who fall victim to crimes of any nature are welcome to access services free of cost at any of its 14 parish offices.

“We see persons who are family members of murder victims. We use our three-tier classification in terms of the victims that we see. You have the primary victim, which is the person to whom the incident directly occurred; and you have the secondary victims, who are now the close family members and friends of that primary victim,” Ms. Binns pointed out.

There are also tertiary victims, such as those in the primary victim’s wider community who may need support.

Ms. Binns informed JIS News that in instances of murder where the primary victim is the deceased, focus is then turned to the secondary victims, who then become the primary, and provide services for them.

Those include the children of the deceased, their spouse, and other close family members.

“In situations that affect an entire community because of the gruesome nature of the crime and that sort of thing, we also provide community intervention in those situations,” she said.

The VSB accepts cases from the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) as well as from the courts. Walk-ins are also welcomed for persons who believe they need support.

“An individual who knows of our services and believes that they need to access our services can walk in. Once you are a victim of crime, you can access our services. Our services are open to all persons, meaning adults and children, male, female. It does not matter who you are, you can access,” Ms. Binns said.

She highlighted that the Branch also makes its services accessible to persons who cannot make it into a parish office by providing home visits, e-counselling and other options.

“There are times when persons just can’t find it to come to us or there may be a challenge for us to be able to go to them. We also do school visits, and we meet them in their communities, but we want them to know that we have different web-based platforms that we utilise to be able to provide the services to them that they need. We want them to know that our doors are open to them,” Ms. Binns told JIS News.

For more information on the programmes and services of the Victim Services Branch, or to locate a parish, persons can visit the Justice Ministry’s website, moj.gov.jm, or call 888 JUSTICE (888-587-8423).