
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, June 6, 1994                    TAG: 9406030007 
SECTION: FRONT                     PAGE: A6    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: Medium 
DATELINE: 940606                                 LENGTH:

TELL VICTIMS' STORIES, PLEASE

{LEAD} Your newspaper has (again) published an article on the plight of the poor incarcerated prisoner (```Surrounded by criminals': Prison time is endless,'' Associated Press article, May 16). Enough is enough! My daughter was the victim of a particularly brutal rape four years ago. The trauma experienced by her, our family and friends is still very real and ongoing, affecting all of us in our daily lives.

It is time for the media to tell our stories. I think I speak for the hundreds of thousands of victims of all crime, large and small.

{REST} Why doesn't a reporter document our stories: the nightmares; the sometimes terrifying journey through the legal jungle of court proceedings, where the accused person's rights are more important than ours; the frustration of all law-enforcement officials - judges, police, attorneys - who are forced to see these felons repeatedly because of a system that fails everyone; the acts of self-destruction of the victims; therapy sessions that can run into thousands of dollars; time lost from jobs; loss of self-esteem and control; the tearing apart of families resulting from stress and grief; the painful process, through parole boards, to keep the perpetrator in prison if you are lucky enough to get a conviction; the fear of being harmed again that you somehow learn to live with on a daily basis; the sense of absolute violation; how long it takes to heal from a criminal act, if a person ever truly does.

Sad to say, we victims are not ``news.'' Our stories sometimes take years or a lifetime to unfold - much, much too long to hold any interest for the media.

The article cites a prisoner as saying ``Time, nothing but time.'' He is exactly right, with one very large discrepancy. His time will be served and finished one day. For his victims - for victims like my daughter and family, for all the thousands of victims in this country - the sentence is life with no chance of parole.

ROBERTA MARSHALL

Chesapeake, May 19, 1994

by CNB