Dear Colleagues and Friends:

This April, we share an important opportunity to promote our shared values for victims’ rights and victim assistance-safety in our homes, schools, and communities; ensuring that crime victims’ rights are implemented throughout our criminal and juvenile justice systems; and making sure that victims’ voices are consistently heard throughout our systems of justice and our nation as a whole. The theme of 2004 National Crime Victims’ Rights Week (NCVRW) –”Victims’ Rights: America’s Values”–can help unite our entire nation behind the basic value of “justice for all.”

Based upon input from the field, the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) is disseminating the Resource Guide in 2003 to give you ample time to plan victim and community awareness events and activities during the week of April 18-24, 2004. Exciting new components are designed to make it easier for you to replicate the camera-ready artwork; utilize the introductory footage on DVD that illustrates the theme for your NCVRW activities; and join a nationwide effort to publicize the 20th anniversary of the Crime Victims Fund, which supports victim compensation and victim assistance programs.

This year, the Resource Guide is part of a larger, dedicated effort sponsored by OVC, with support from Justice Solutions, to generate greater awareness among crime victims, survivors, and communities about victims’ rights and services. Over the next few years, you will be provided with many resources similar to the NCVRW Resource Guide–simple to replicate, victim-sensitive, and designed to maximize public awareness–through OVC’s new National Victim and Public Awareness Strategy.

This Resource Guide is also available in electronic format on OVC’s web site, which can be accessed at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/ncvrw/2004/welcome.html.

My staff and I send you best wishes for a highly successful commemoration of 2004 National Crime Victims’ Rights Week.

Sincerely,

John W. Gillis
Director