It’s common knowledge that special victims units, SVU’s within police departments have their hands full with clients who may even be repeat victims of domestic, sexual or child abuse. What is less commonly relayed is the passion and dedication those detectives involved bring to each case, whether it’s the first time seeing the victim or the tenth.
In fact, a recent Fox story shared the stories of Detectives Tyler Jackey and Martin Mullins as they prepared to follow up with special victims within St. Joseph’s County in northeastern Indiana. In the story, writer Traci Capellman shares that,
“They never know what their day will bring or often when it will end, making house calls to make sure someone’s safe, trying to get interviews with victims and witnesses, finding terrified victims have provided the wrong phone number and in many cases addresses that don’t exist. Some days, it’s back to SVU to hurry up and wait for victims who don’t show. And more often than not, a victim who does show up, recants his or her story.”
The detectives discuss their stories in iRecord-equipped interview rooms, analyzing body language, applying careful interviewing technique and more. Unfortunately, these cases are often very difficult to wrap up as victims don’t show up to appointments or recant their stories.
In fact, Capellman notes that the burn out rate is fairly high, and that many SVU’s see an average turnover of a couple years.
What stands out, however, is that these professionals are committed to their clients, regardless of how many times they have seen them before. They persist down the path of finding the truth, they show compassion and professionalism with their clients and they strive to help prevent and end abuse through utilizing top-of-the-line equipment, protocols and resources available to them through the Family Justice Center.
Officers and professionals in both the South Bend PD and Casie Center deal with all of these stories, child abuse, neglect, domestic abuse, and more.
Learn more about the equipment that each of these organizations utilize for capturing interviews and interrogations, and how iRecord technologies are helping others and saving lives.