Barb Hedstrom; Shakopee, Minnesota, Police Department

• Crime victim & community services coordinator for SPD
• 30 years experience in criminal & civil justice systems
• Experience in domestic violence, child protection, & mental health

An organization’s self-evaluation often reveals both hidden strengths and hidden weaknesses. For Shakopee Police Department, a small agency in Minnesota, one of the latter was victim services. Their solution? Adding a victim services coordinator to the agency’s staff.

The victim services coordinator provides trauma-informed support to crime victims by assisting in the investigation stage of a case, educating crime victims on their rights and the criminal justice system, and helping victims to access resources available to them. The coordinator also supports the officers and investigators, who are often the first line of victim contact and services. Barb Hedstrom at the Shak-opee Police Department says that her role “is to help [officers] do their job while bringing a victim-centered, trauma-informed atmosphere” to the agency.

Ms. Hedstrom’s position is two-fold as a victim and a community services coordinator. In addition to victim services, she represents the police department in the community through activities ranging from working with the local diversity organization to organizing volunteers to paint over graffiti.

Integrating a new person into the police culture is not always easy, especially when the position is unfamiliar to the officers, but, once they see that the position was created to help them do their jobs, it makes more sense. Ms. Hedstrom found ways to explain to officers how she could assist them with tasks like following up with a victim, providing information for briefings, and educating new officers on crime victims’ rights and the victim services available.

According to Ms. Hedstrom, “One of the biggest challenges came from working with the established community-based and prosecution-based victim service professionals who had concerns about how my work here within the police department might overlap or take away from their work.” However, she works as a partner with these professionals, referring victims to community programs and helping victims transition to working with prosecution-based services when a case is criminally charged. In addition, the police department is sometimes the only resource for a victim of a crime that might not be result in a prosecution or isn’t managed by community services (e.g., identity theft or burglary).

Despite such early challenges, the feedback from the community has been extremely positive. Victims are often grateful for the outreach, and the city and police leaders consistently receive positive feedback about the position from community members.

Officers and investigators are seeing the benefits too, from more time to investigate the case while the victim specialist spends time with the victims to an in-house source for information about local resources. The addition of a victim services specialist has impacted repeat calls for services and contributed to the agency’s case clearance rate, as well.

This innovative position has helped Shakopee Police Department improve its victim services and, by extension, its service to the Shakopee community as a whole. 

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