This report describes the activities and lessons learned from the three demonstration sites for the implementation of the Enhancing Law Enforcement Response to Victims (ELERV) initiative.
This 3-year initiative, which began in 2016, was designed to assess and expand a police agency’s response to crime victims through the application of the ELERV model. The jurisdictions involved were Casper, Wyoming; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Saginaw, Michigan. The ELERV strategy publication series provided each site with the framework, steps, and resources required to assess crime victim needs, evaluate existing efforts to serve crime victims, prioritize goals, and implement and evaluate new victim-centered, trauma-informed strategies. Since individual and structural differences existed among the demonstration sites - including agency staffing and resources, community demographics and culture, and historical community-police relationships - each site adapted the ELERV strategy to address its distinctive needs; however, each site focused its assessment and implementation activities on the four core principles of the ELERV strategy, i.e., leadership, partnering, training, and performance monitoring. This report describes how each site developed its distinctive application of these four ELERV principles. Researcher teams met with representatives of each demonstration site to develop lessons and insights that may assist other law enforcement agencies interested in applying the ELERV strategy to their services for crime victims. Agencies are encouraged to consider developing partnerships with researchers from outside the agency, because the research process requires special skills. Faculty and students in advanced degree programs of institutions of higher education - especially from the disciplines of criminal justice, sociology, political science, social work, and psychology - have the resources to assist with agency evaluations of their victim services.