Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 14, 1995 TAG: 9508140099
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Organizers of the group hope that its name will become as familiar to victims as ``Miranda'' is to people accused of crime.
President Stanley Rosenbluth said at a meeting Saturday that the group's purpose is to make assistance and counseling accessible to crime victims and to promote victims' rights issues, but not to get involved in politics.
One idea being considered is to print information cards showing the VUAC name, phone number and basic victims' rights information - not unlike the Miranda cards some police carry. Miranda refers to the 1966 U.S. Supreme Court case that said police must inform arrested people of their legal rights.
Police officers, medics, firefighters and the like could hand the VUAC cards to victims soon after a crime is committed.
Group members said that would make it easier for victims to get immediate assistance. Often it takes days, weeks or months to be contacted by a local or regional victim-assistance agency - if the call comes at all.
To group members, ``victim'' includes people close to those slain, raped or otherwise harmed in criminal acts - people who may have no involvement in what happened, except that they share the pain or feel the loss of someone they love. Most of the two dozen people at Saturday's meetings were relatives of slain people.
Rosenbluth's son and daughter-in-law were killed in their Chesterfield County home in November 1993. He considers himself a victim.
The network plans to support victims, expand victim-witness assistance programs and promote issues, including a victims' rights amendment to the state constitution and keeping victims' relatives notified when the case is argued on appeal or when the convict comes up for parole.
Joan Uhlar, chairwoman of the Justice for Victims of Crimes group formed in Tidewater in 1987, said hers and several similar grass-roots groups formed with the intention of becoming a statewide organization. She said none has succeeded, but many victims' rights group members think VUAC will.
Uhlar said her group is dissolving itself, in part because it stayed regional. Many members are joining VUAC and the money left in Justice for Victims of Crimes accounts will be donated as well.
Rosenbluth started organizing VUAC in November. He said papers for its registration as a nonprofit organization have been filed, and a board of directors is in place. An annual membership meeting is scheduled for Nov. 4.
by CNB