Sheriff's Office approved to apply for grant to fund victim's advocate for Carson City

According to Carson City Sheriff Ken Furlong, the Sheriff’s Office is applying for a grant in order to fund a victim’s advocate position, a position that used to be under the umbrella of Advocates to End Domestic Violence.

The Carson City Board of Supervisor’s approved the application during their Thursday meeting.

The decision to move the position to the Sheriff’s Office was a joint decision between the office and Advocates. According to the Board of Supervisor’s agenda, the position through Advocates will not be funded after June 3o, 2019, and the Sheriff’s Office has decided to take up the act of funding for themselves, which would move the position to the Sheriff’s Office.

“This position is much broader than the victim’s advocate position at the District Attorney’s Office,” said Sheriff Furlong during the Thursday Board of Supervisors meeting. “They deal with criminal prosecutions, but we have victims in this community that for one reason or another fall through the cracks.”

One of those instances, Sheriff Furlong said, is when there is no suspect in custody for a crime committed against someone, but that does not make them any less of a victim.

“Our Victim’s Advocate would primarily target low level domestic violence issues,” said Sheriff Furlong. “It is considered to be a tremendous asset to the sheriffs office and to the community.”

The original concept of this relationship between the Sheriff’s Office and Advocates was to deal with the large volume of domestic disputes that occur between residents in our community. Domestic disputes, Sheriff Furlong said, our the base level, which can rise into domestic violence or batteries later on.

“What we targeted was to have a person at the Sheriff’s Office who could offer resources to those lowest level verbal domestic disputes so that we could avert the probability of them escalating into the more violent and criminal situations,” said Sheriff Furlong.

Currently, the advocate is community-based. Bringing this position under the direction of the Sheriff’s Office would also transform the Victim Witness Coordinator position into a system-based advocate position. By doing this, the advocate may have more leeway in assisting law enforcement, the agenda stated.

The grant, if awarded, would come from the Department of Justice, 2019 Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance and Grant Program, in the amount of $80,059 which would fund a full-time position for a Victim Witness Coordinator position at the Sheriff’s Office.

According to the Board of Supervisor’s agenda: “This grant would provide funds in an effort to increase the ability for the Carson City Sheriff's Office to provide victim services and crisis intervention to victims and witnesses. The grant would also assist victims and witnesses navigate through the criminal justice process. The Sheriff's Office Victim Witness Coordinator position would be a new full-time position and would work alongside both front line officers as well as the District Attorney’s office.”

In addition, this decision to fund the position through the Sheriff’s Office also coincides with the adoption of Marsy’s Law.

Marsy’s Law, legislation which deals in victim’s rights advocacy, was passed into law during the 2018 general election in Nevada with 61 percent of the state’s support.

“Within Marsy’s Law, it recognizes that victims are often not processed through the criminal justice system because you don’t have a suspect in custody, and yet they are still victims, and so this position does assist in that area,” said Sheriff Furlong.

To learn more about Marsy’s Law, click here.

The requested funding of $80,059 would be distributed as follows:

Salary and benefits totaling $72,838
New equipment consisting of a new laptop and printer totaling $2,434
Training totaling $4,787

The Office of Criminal Justice Assistance was established in 1987 to administer grants to local government agencies from the U.S. Department of Justice. The intention is to manage the coordination of funds to support Nevada’s mission to reduce violent crime and substance abuse, according to the grant application.

To learn more about this program, and the grant, you can view the supporting documents of the agenda here.