NEW CITY, NY – Rockland County District Attorney Tom Walsh announced that The Office for Victims of Crime has awarded the Rockland County District Attorney’s Special Victims Unit a grant under the FY20 Law Enforcement-Based Victim Specialist Grant Program. The grant award is for 270,000 to be distributed over a 3-year period and will fund a full-time Victim Specialist for the DA’s Special Victims Center (SVC). 25 grants total were given out nationwide. 8 were given to small agencies (those with less than 100 full-time sworn officers)

Executive Assistant District Attorney Kathleen Devlin, head of the Special Victims Unit said,” With this grant, our team will be able to provide additional services to those who are victims of horrible crimes. We will never allow those most vulnerable to fall through the cracks.”

View the Rockland County Special Victims Center below 

The RCDAO intends to utilize the grant funding to develop a victim specialist program, so a member of the RCDAO is solely dedicated to assisting victims. The program will also seek to provide victims with a person who can help them navigate the justice system and its processes. The program will be centralized within our Special Victim’s Unit, which prosecutes crimes involving domestic violence, sexual assault, physical and sexual abuse of child, as well as those crimes committed against other vulnerable members of our population.

Rockland County District Attorney Tom Walsh said,” The news of receiving this grant will be a monumental advantage for our Special Victims Unit to have a full-time victim specialist on staff. Rockland residents who are victims of sex abuse or domestic violence will be benefactors of this grant. As we all know, we can never do enough for crime victims.”