Victims of Crime Research Digest, Issue No. 7

Taking Action

The theme for National Victims of Crime Awareness Week 2014 is "Taking Action." This focus on action applies as much for all criminal justice stakeholders, whether law enforcement or victims, as it does for those in policy, programming, and research. Research can play a very important role by providing the empirical evidence needed to make changes to how things get done or perhaps to introduce completely new programs or processes. In this seventh issue of the Victims of Crime Research Digest, we bring our readers more research touching upon a variety of victim-related issues.

This issue of the Digest begins with an article by Lisa Ha on cyberbullying in Canada, on what we know and what we do not know. In the second article, Melissa Lindsay provides a look at how technology is being used in all the jurisdictions to improve access to victim services. Next, Susan McDonald and Lara Rooney present the social science research on support animals, dogs in particular, and the role they could play in supporting victims of crime. This is followed by an article by Susan McDonald who examines third party records case law from 2003 to 2010, an update from previous case law reviews. And finally, in the last article, André Solecki and Katie Scrim take a look at the human cost of impaired driving by mapping and analyzing incidents of impaired driving causing death across Canada in 2012.

We hope you enjoy this issue and the articles spur you to consider "taking action." As always, if you have comments, please do not hesitate to be in touch.