 Welcome to Finding Respect in the Chaos. I'm Cynthia Lee Sinclair here on Think Tech Hawaii. So happy to have you with us today. We've got a really great program. I'm here with Dennis Dunn from the Prosecutor's Office. Thank you so much for coming. Oh, it's a pleasure to be here. It's really nice. I know we tried one other time. Yeah, sorry about that. It was so great though. He calls me up and he says, so I have to cancel. And he goes, and you're never going to get another excuse like this one. Because Dennis has a service dog that he works with. And the dog went into heat. So we couldn't very well have the dog come in. So we had to cancel and reschedule for today. So I'm so happy that you're here, because I know this. We're really glad to be here, and it's a real pleasure. I know there's a lot to your job and what you do. And I really want to thank you for everything that you're out there doing. You know, the title of our show is Finding Respect in the Chaos. And there's a lot of chaos out there. And this is a place where we can find some respect. And that's in the Victim Witness Program, Cocua Services. Victim Witness Cocua Services, correct. Cocua Services. And this just, I'm so amazed. You've been doing this for 40 years? 40 years on January 30. Wow, January 30. January 3, which means you started when you were 10. Well, something like that. Something like that. Right. That's a long time, and you've really seen some changes over the years in the services, in the programs, and everything. A lot of things we do now are enhanced by electronic means, electronic notification to victims when the defendants are released. All of our records are electronic now. Easy to email, not just information, but documents to victims. So if they need a court document, we just get it right off of our case tracking system and email it directly to them. So for example, if they need a copy of a no-contact order, I get a call, someone's being released, and I call up the victim. And they say, I don't have a copy of my no-contact order. I just go ahead and take my email, send it out to them, and they've got it almost instantly. Oh, wow. And then can print it out for themselves. So they've got that backup in case they need it. And then we never even dreamed. When I first started, we didn't even have cell phones or anything. Yeah. We were excited to have a Xerox machine. And no computers at all at that point in time. Right. What a difference that was. How would you even go about contacting people or working with people? Well, we had the old manual telephones. Right. It was oftentimes a challenge. But we were able to persevere, I think, especially when we first started. So many victims and witnesses had never had any help. They were very grateful. Sure. Anybody assist them because they were lost. I mean, I often compare our services to like a tour guide. And a victim is essentially someone who's gone to a foreign country, doesn't know the language or the customs, and we're there to help provide that. Oh, that's a great analogy. Years ago in the early 80s, I went through some stuff with my father coming out, being abused as a kid, and stuff. And so we were able to go through the victim witness program back then. And that was, what, 30, 40 years ago? 30-some-odd years ago. So it was back then when there weren't cell phones and all that stuff. And it was, you just got a message on your answering machine to come into the office. If you were lucky, you had an answering machine. If you were lucky, well, right? So that's what we would just get a message and then go down to the office and pick up whatever I needed and stuff. So it was quite a bit different back then than it is now. It's an adjustment, especially those of us. The older generation aren't as accustomed to assuming that electronic communications is the way to go. So a lot of people that we try to call don't want to call. They want to text them. Oh, my goodness. So texting people sometimes gets a response when calls don't. So the other thing is email addresses tend to be more consistent over time, so that a lot of times we'll have their telephone number. But that changes for a variety of reasons or they don't take block calls or whatever. But if we have an email address, we can almost always get to someone. Right. So what was it that made you want to do this? Well, I actually started out as a volunteer for an organization called Women Against Rape back in the mid to late 70s. I joined the organization after taking a class. It was a class in sex roles. I'm taught by Dr. Libby Rue, who was one of the real pioneers locally in research on sexual assault. And I don't know, I just kept asking her so many questions. She said, well, Dennis, we can't take up with this whole class answering your questions. There is this organization, Women Against Rape. If you're more interested, you could talk to them. They have lots of information. I ended up volunteering initially as a court monitor, and then eventually as a victim advocate with them. And that's sort of what ended up getting me into the door at the prosecutor's office. So what's a court monitor? What is that? Well, what does that do? In the old days, a number of programs, including Women Against Rape and then Mothers Against Drunk Driving subsequently, would have trained volunteers who would sit in the courtrooms monitor cases. In our case, we would monitor sexual assault cases, mostly in the circuit court. And in the case of MAD, they would be monitoring the drunk driving cases. And so generally, we would evaluate the judges and the prosecutors and how the victims were treated. And we actually, I think, established a pretty good relationship with some of the prosecutors, even the defense attorneys at times, and the judges would be able to talk to them and give them feedback, as well as ask them questions. There was a lot we needed to learn, because the victims want to know a lot. So we need to be informed, and so they can be informed. Well, and they need to learn, too. So I would think that sort of happened in a different way, too, not just for you guys to learn and for the victims to learn, but for the prosecutors to learn a better way. And the judges, because I can remember back in the day, there was unreliable witnesses. Everybody was called, or it's too long of a time. And now we have all these new statutes from this latest bill that just passed, where they have the extra two years. So I had Roy Chang and Victoria Chang on last time. Roy Chang, actually, was with Women Against Rape at the time, the only man involved. And when I joined and found out about him, I was so impressed. And so that's one of the things that led me when I had an opportunity to intern at the prosecutor's office. I accepted the opportunity, because I'd been so impressed by him as a deputy prosecutor being involved with this organization. He is a remarkable guy. I thought the same thing. He actually said to say hi to you, because I told him that you were coming on next, right? That you would be on my next show. I don't see him very often, of course. Victoria worked in our office for a while, too. That's what they were telling me. And I had told her when I first met her, when she came into the office, that her dad was the reason why I started to work at the prosecutor's office back in January 3rd of 1979. Wow, right? And I guess it was in the 80s that he moved out into private practice, right? Correct, correct. He wasn't there that long while I was there. Right, OK. But certainly has maintained his longtime support and advocacy for victims. No question about that. Right. I was really proud that he came on. I had actually put my feelers out and had talked to a number of different law offices and didn't hear about it from anybody but them. And boy, were they prepared. And I was so glad that they were the ones you answered my call because they were the perfect people to come on having had all the experience in the prosecutor's office. They had very accurate information, which is critical. I think a lot of times people think of different kinds of support the victims need. And of course, a lot of victims, of course, need counseling and therapy. They need current victim compensation to help restore them financially. But a lot of what they need is information. Accurate information and consistent information can help reduce the trauma. Right. They've shown that. Studies have shown that. So when we can be there to provide them with the information on a timely basis, it can make the whole process easier. Because I'm sure you've heard in the old days, people would always say going through the criminal justice system was the second victimization for victims. Yes, absolutely. And sometimes victims would even say it was worse going through the experience of the crime. Because at least when the crime takes place, it may be for a relatively short period of time. But the criminal justice process seems to and often does take forever, especially more serious crimes often take a long time to go through the system. Right. And here in Hawaii, things are changing. And it's a good thing because they really need to change. There's unfortunately too much of that good old boy thing going on. And police being not fully trained on how to handle domestic violence situations and rape situations where they need to be trained further. And I know that Marcy Lopes, from DVAC, is starting to really work with the police. Yes, I just spoke to her this morning. Oh yeah, OK. And I know. I keep wanting to get her on my show. A new project that we're trying to have a collaboration together to get them in closer and earlier contact with victims. Right. I mean, while we are part of the prosecutor's office, we obviously want to assist and improve the prosecution of cases and make them successful. Our primary responsibility is to the victims. And quite frankly, in many of these cases, we know they may not have a positive outcome, or at least the outcome the victim might want. But what we can do is help people get support services in the community that can help them become survivors, to go from victim to survivor. They need that kind of support. Regardless of how well the case comes out and even how happy the victim might be, the recovery process afterward is always difficult. And victims need all the help they can get. And we have, fortunately, we have a lot of good programs in our community. We do. But they need to be linked up. They need to understand what they're all about. Sometimes it takes a more active, warm handoff to other agencies. So maybe even calling them up and say, I've got someone here. I'd like to have talked to you. Or arrange for a meeting and bring someone, you know, an advocate from a community agency in to meet with them with us. And so just say here that people can help you out. Also, quite frankly, especially since you mentioned domestic violence cases, the victims aren't always ready to take advantage of the services. They're afraid. They're financially dependent on the abuser. And so sometimes it may take two or three times that we have a contact with them. And what we'd like to do is to partner with some of our other community agencies, get them in contact with them, and just let them know that there's a whole network of support out there for themselves. When they're ready to go, there's help there. Right, and there's plenty. There's, you know, Catholic Charities. You've got your programs there. You've got DVAC. You've got SATC. So DVAC is the Domestic Violence Action Center. And SATC is the Sexual Abuse Treatment Center. And those are both local here. Well, parents and children together. Parents and children, yeah. That's a big one. Shelters, and they have group support programs for victims. They have offender groups. That they run to. And actually, since I know about it, they're also merging with Children's Alliance. So they will be providing special support services for sexually abused children too. Oh, how nice is that. I'll tell you, what a difference it makes when you have the kind of help that you need. And it can be so isolating. I think that's one of the biggest things. You feel like you're all alone. And even when you know in your head that you're not alone. In your heart, you feel like you're alone. Well, that's an extremely important point, Cynthia, because I think for a lot of victims, they don't feel that those who are around them support them. Or they're maybe just reluctant to talk about their experience. And so sometimes the only way that you can be able to get help and support is to talk to a trained counselor, a trained therapist, who can help you sort out. And then I think really teach you how to engage your support network. Because sometimes that's hard to do. Like I said, sometimes just talking to people is a hard thing. You don't want to admit that this happened to you. Or domestic violence situations. We all know situations where the family has told them, hey, what are you doing with this guy? The guy's a real jerk. And he's just going to hurt you. And why are you staying with him? And then they're afraid afterwards when they're ready to leave, they don't want to everybody say I told you so. And too much shame. Shame helps people stay silent. Absolutely, absolutely. OK, well, this is all good stuff. And we got more to talk about too. So I'm really hoping you'll stay with us. But we're going to take a quick break, so don't go anywhere. Hey, loha. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii, airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii, live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your co-workers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me, because security matters. Aloha. Hello, everyone. I'm Yukari Kunisei, the host of Japanese broadcasts on Think Tech Hawaii, airing every Wednesday. I'm hosting from 2 p.m. every Monday. I'm hosting a program where you can find useful information about the Japanese community, news, and other guests. Hello, everyone. I'm Yukari Kunisei, the host of Security Matters Hawaii, airing every Wednesday. Welcome back to Finding Respect in the Chaos. I'm Cynthia Lee Sinclair, and I'm here with Dennis Dunn from the Prosecutor's Office. And we are learning all about the amazing programs and the differences that are being made now from when it all first started. So let's talk a little bit about the specific programs that you have, because when I went through the victim witness program back in the early 80s, the only thing they had was, what did you call it? Crime victim compensation. Crime victim compensation. So I got money. I didn't get very much in it. And it was such a pain in the neck to try to do all the paperwork back and forth. I kind of just gave up and said, it's too much work. I don't care. But so. Well, maybe we'll start first with a compensation program that you mentioned that. One of the things that I'm sort of happy to be able to tell you is that we have a very close working relationship with them. So far too many years, the process was far too difficult. I mean, you had this program that could help people, but the process was very ground, very slowly. We had complaints even sometimes that when people went to appear before the commissioners, that the commissioners weren't very sympathetic. And we're victim blaming. And we agreed with some of that, to be honest with you. We even went to the legislature and testified about that. But I think a lot of that's been changed. Also, under the current administrator, Pamela Ferguson Bray, she has implemented a whole administrative procedure that cuts out a lot of the wait time that victims used to have. Oh, wow, that's great. So the administrative processor can administrative review cases and sign off them without every single case going to the commissioners. Now, only those cases that are appealed go to the commissioners. And so that makes it a lot easier because that part is better. The other thing is we work with them closely. One of the requirements in our law is that the victim must have made a police report. And so the difficult thing about that is the commission then is responsible for reviewing the police report. And in the old days, we used to be able to just make our copy of the police report, making it available to them. The police sort of cracked down with some good reasons in terms of distributing out copies of reports. And so we had this kind of dilemma. The commission was forced to go down to the police station and at a certain time, and they'd not pick them up, they'd have to sit there and read them and take notes. Oh my goodness. And so it was pretty ridiculous. So we developed a procedure where we just prepare a summary of the police report with all the important salient features of that particular case and put that information in this summary report and send it to the commission. And we do that not only as our staff, our victim witness counselors involved in this process. We train our interns, our MSW students, and so on. We train them to do this process so that we tend to have a lot of people available to keep the process going so that doesn't become an obstacle to someone getting their compensation. Oh, that's great. We also work extensively, and this is a service that we have across the board for all crime victims, is that we have interpreter services that we fund with some of our victims of crime act funds, our VOCA funds. So if there's any victim anywhere on Oahu who needs assistance for any type, from a victim services agency, we will provide an interpreter for them. Wow. And this also includes translating materials. That's a big thing for people to know here, especially here in Hawaii. Well, there's a lot. It's amazing when you find out how many people for whom English is not their first language. And it's not just people who don't speak English at all. It's people who don't understand and agree. And the criminal justice process and the victim compensation process are difficult to understand, even for those who speak English. So we want to make sure that anyone who needs language assistance is going to get it. And that's one of the things that we make sure and do. Like I said, we also translate materials or communications back and forth with the victim. We will translate those for any agency. So there's no cost to the agency, no cost to the victim. Wow. And you could go right into court with them even then. Well, the court is now obligated to provide interpreters, and they do a pretty good job. But if we need interpreters prior to court or during interviews at our office or when they do an intake with a domestic violence program or in a therapy program, we need an interpreter. We will provide for the interpreters for any of those types of situations. So no crime victim on OAHO should be going without having a competent interpreter available for them. That is important. That's important for our viewers to know. And that's something we did not have years ago. Yeah, I know. That's a big improvement. In addition to that, I think one of the things that's really critical is that we have been fortunate. Our legislature has provided a fairly extensive list of rights for victims. Now, a lot of people aren't aware of them, and that's one of the jobs we need to do. But there's a lot of things that can help the victim, first of all, get information so they know about their case. They understand the criminal justice process. Next, they want to be able to know, OK, how can I participate in the process? So, for example, the victims have a right to be able to provide a statement. We call it a victim impact statement prior to someone being sentenced. So if someone is going to be sentenced in court, the victim has an opportunity to submit as part of the pre-sentence investigation so that judge, when they're looking at, OK, what kind of sentence would this person get? They're looking at, OK, exactly. How did this crime affect the victim? Not just was this guy a Boy Scouter, going to church every Sunday. We want to know, what was the effect of this guy? The other thing is victims have a right at the time of sentencing to appear and make a statement in court. And so we need to let them know that they can do that. The exciting thing is that we're able to be there with them as well as our courthouse dog, Clover, can be there with them at the sentencing. You guys saw in the picture, right? That's made a big difference, too. Clover's a great dog, full of love and full of all kinds of comfort. And it's so great that you have her. And she's such a good dog. While she's trained by Assistant Dogs of Hawaii, she's the same training as any regular assistance dog that helps a disabled person. She's in a subcategory that they call facility dogs, and she's a courthouse dog, facility dog. Every county now has a courthouse dog with their prosecutor's office. Oh, that's awesome. We're the first state in the country where every single jurisdiction has a dog. You know, here in Hawaii, we've got a lot of the first state in the country stuff, or the only state in the country that does it, and things like that. But I think it's just really amazing. It makes me very proud to live here. It does. It does. And the other exciting thing is that some other programs are getting dogs, too. So Clover's sister, Cassie, works as an assistance dog with Child Welfare Services on Maui. Oh, my goodness, I see that. So not only is she involved in the courts, but she also assists in Child Welfare Services in investigating a case. Oh, and for kids, that's huge to have a dog to pet and hug. You're surprised how many doors it opens. Yeah, I'll bet. And with people grown-ups, too, right? Absolutely. I've had cases where initially the prosecutor asks for the dog to be available for the child. But then I find this parent spends more time with Clover than the child. The parent is more interested. I can even remember an instance where a parent went in and had a terrible time being cross-examined by a defense attorney for, oh, for a half hour or more, 45 minutes. And she came out of the courtroom and she just laid down, this was our previous courthouse dog, Pono, but just laid down on the floor with Pono for about 10 minutes. Didn't say anything, just laid there. And then when she got up, she said, thank you, Pono, I needed that. Oh, it's so precious. We've also had kids who wouldn't talk until they had a dog in the review with them. So, and there's some that, you know, who wants to bring their child to the prosecutor's office. No one, again. It's not something that an eye as a parent would like to do. I know there's a dog there and they like dogs. It's like, hey, this is a great thing. So it encourages people to want to come back. Maybe they don't want to like to come back for the interviews, but they like to come back and seek lower. Like to come back for the dog. Exactly. And they get to play after their interview, they get to play with the dog in the conference room. They throw the ball around or do anything that they like and just have fun with the dog. Just have fun. It's not like she's working anymore. She has to take off her clothes. So is she like always on the job when she's got her leash on? Is that the thing like I don't? The idea is when she has her vest on is when she's working. It's when she has her vest so she knows she's working. That's amazing. I know I want to get a dog for me, but I just want a small dog, not a big dog like Clover. I need something I can carry around. So this is so amazing. I love that they're bringing dogs into the program and stuff too. So what other, one thing we need to, I think point out here, like when I was talking to Roy Chang and Victoria Chang, they were talking about civil cases. So and that's different. You are dealing with criminal cases, right? Well, it's not completely different. And one of the things that's kind of important to change in the law is that if there is a restitution order made in a case, and they now make freestanding restitution orders in the criminal cases, that order can be enforced as a civil judgment. So if you had the court ordered, you know, $10,000 in restitution, you can register that order, you file it with the court, and then you can go try to enforce that order in the same way that you might do a regular civil judgment. So not everybody would have the necessarily desire or the means to get involved in a protracted civil proceeding, but if they want to be able to enforce their restitution and it hasn't already been paid, then they can enforce it that way, which is great. Now, the other side of that, which is good, is that we now have an extensive program within the Department of Public Safety in cooperation with the Crime Victim Compensation Commission, where they actually collect all the restitution from the inmates and from the pro-leas. And it is a very well-run process in the sense that the inmates are required to pay 25% of their accounts each month to pay the restitution until it's satisfied. And so the interesting thing is many of the individuals who go to prison who are on parole are more likely to have their restitution fully paid off than the individuals who are on probation because they have this whole system of enforcement that it's a mandatory thing and it's required the victim makes sure that they get their money. The other thing is for the offender is that it can demonstrate to the paroling authority when they come up for parole that they've taken responsibility for their crime by making sure the restitution was paid and that will make them look better in the eyes of paroling. So as a positive aspect on them, in the Crime Victim Compensation Commission, they collect the parolees come in and actually pay at the commission office. And they tell us that a lot of the offenders say, I really feel good about myself now because I feel like I've taken responsibility in a tangible way. In other words, the monetary assessment they've had for restitution to restore the victim makes them feel like they've done something concrete. And so that's an important thing not just for the victim but also for the offenders. Yeah, for their own self-esteem. Oh my gosh, there's so much more to talk about. I know we've only got a couple minutes left. Do you have one last thing that you'd like to sort of, what's the very most important thing that you guys do there? The most important thing is that we're there to listen to people. And a lot of times victims, the hardest thing is they feel like nobody's listening. And the first thing that we do is put out a lot of effort in there trying to listen to what the victim has to say. What are their needs? What are their fears? What are their concerns? And then try to do what we can to address those but listening to people is the most important. Now, we only work with victims for a short time period. So the really important thing is that if your family member or friend or your friend at church or whatever, your classmate at school, if they've been a victim, you have to support them because we depend on them getting that support on a daily basis because that's what's gonna help again, the victim to go from victim to survivor is if they have support from family and friends in the community. Absolutely. Which is really more than what we can do. Boy, that is the wisest thing too because that's exactly what everybody out there needs to do. If it's your friend, your neighbor, someone in your family, like he said, you have to be the daily support for that person. They may have big support systems through the government or through victim witness, but they still need you every single day. Victims need to be believed and supported. Absolutely. It's not their fault in that they're going to be getting their support systems surrounding and protecting them, not questioning them or blaming them. Right, and you're not alone. Everyone just needs to remember, you're not alone. Dennis, thank you so much for coming. Oh, real pleasure. This is wonderful. I really appreciate having you here today. Thank you so much. Well, that's it for finding respect in the chaos today. I'm Cynthia Lee Sinclair on Think Tech Hawaii, and I hope you will join me for my next show. Take care.