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Victims of crime
receive $1.2 million
in compensation

By Pat Gee
Star-Bulletin

The state Crime Victim Compensation Commission paid $1.2 million to victims of crime in its latest year.

Some 55 percent of that went to assault victims and 36 percent to victims of sexual assault.

For its next fiscal year, beginning July 1, the commission expects to have the same $1.2 million budget but is asking the Legislature for $310,000 to $410,000, or about a third of what it received this year.

"Why should the taxpayer pay the crime victim, why not the bad guy?" is the question posed by Executive Director Pamela Ferguson-Brey.

With this in mind, the commission is working closely with the Judiciary to make sure that judges order all defendants to pay a mandatory fee that would go to compensate crime victims, she said.

Ferguson-Brey said she is confident of increasing the fund significantly this year through enforcement of the mandatory fee program, in addition to creating another pool of defendants provided for by a bill now before the Legislature. The bill would require payment to the crime-victim fund as a condition of a deferred acceptance of a guilty or no-contest plea.

If the bill passes, she said, the commission will need only $310,000 from the state coffers for the year beginning July 1; if not, the agency will ask for $410,000.

The commission has achieved 40-percent to 50-percent self-sufficiency this year, and hopes to be fully independent of state funding in another two years, Ferguson-Brey said.

In its 32nd annual report to the Legislature, the commission revealed statistics for the July 1, 1998-June 30, 1999 year. The report showed that the average adult victim in the state was female, 33 years of age, a victim of assault, and received $1,392.

The average minor victim was a girl, 11 years of age, a victim of sexual assault by an adult, and was awarded $1,256, the report said.

Since last year, the commission has noticed the most prevalent trend in assaults has been related to "road rage," Ferguson-Brey said.

The commission will hold its first statewide Hawaii Victim Services Conference on May 3-4 at the Sheraton-Waikiki Hotel for professionals who work with victims of violent crime.

Noted speakers at the conference will address subjects that include mass casualty situations, stalking, elder abuse, pedophilia, immigration crime and violence against women.

Registration is $50, which includes all workshop materials and lunch. Limited scholarships are available.

For more information, call 587-1143.