Using Research to Enhance Incorporation of Victim Services

Presenters

Amy Durall, Office for Victims of Crime Fellow 

Amy is an accomplished professional with a master’s degree in psychology and over 35 years of social service experience. This includes field practice as a victim services director for law enforcement agencies, a key member of assessment teams that review law enforcement response to violent crimes, and as a training and technical assistance provider for national projects that include policy and practice review, training development and delivery, and direct assistance with strategic approaches to enhance victim response efforts.

Amy has documented experience collaborating with local, state, university, and Tribal law enforcement agencies, allied partners of various disciplines, and multiple federal funding agencies.

Lynn Langton, Program Director for the Victimization and Response Program at RTI International

Lynn leads the OVC-sponsored iMPRoVE (Measures for Providers Responding to Victimization Experiences) project aimed at developing and implementing an outcome measurement tool for the victim service field. Her research focuses broadly on victimization, victim services, sexual violence, hate crime, financial fraud and white-collar crime, police-community relations, and survey methodology.

In her prior role as Chief of the Victimization Statistics Unit at the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Dr. Langton formulated, directed, and oversaw numerous large-scale national projects including the National Crime Victimization Survey and the National Census of Victim Service Providers. She has substantial experience designing studies, developing survey instruments, collecting data from and about victim populations and victim service providers, developing outcome measures, evaluating program effectiveness, analyzing data, and disseminating findings to broad audiences.

Dr. Langton has published and presented numerous research and peer-reviewed papers on a wide variety of topics.

Kelle Barrick, Ph.D., principal scientist and senior research criminologist at RTI International’s Center for Public Safety and Resilience

Kelle has 20 years of experience conducting research on crime, victimization, and the criminal legal response. Her recent work has focused primarily on human trafficking, including designing participatory studies that reach hidden populations and incorporate the voice of individuals who have experienced victimization. Her current efforts include estimating the prevalence of human trafficking; identifying ways to improve the identification and response to labor trafficking; and increasing our understanding of opportunities to disrupt sex trafficking recruitment and network operations. She also has extensive experience with program evaluation and is currently conducting a formative evaluation of a law enforcement-based victim services program.

Kelle received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Administration of Justice from Southern Illinois University and her Doctorate in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Florida State University.

Susan Howley, JD, Project Director at the Center for Victim Research at Justice Information Resource Network

Susan has three decades of experience with crime victims’ issues and working to improve the Nation’s response to victims of crime. That experience has included policy advocacy for the rights and interests of crime victims, working to build the capacity of the crime victim services field and identifying needed areas of improvement, exploring the integration of research and practice in victim services and how to foster that integration, advocating for funding for victim services and prevention, and numerous other activities to improve the response to victims of crime. She is devoted to building an evidence base for victim services.