The path to justice and healing revolves around the CAC

Before Child Advocacy Centers, the path to justice, healing, and a healthy childhood often meant a lot of repeated steps, bouncing around, and repeated trauma to a child.

Before CACs, kids and families could find justice after being a victim of a crime.

But this rarely involved medical and mental health care, long-term support, or connecting the family to useful services. Investigating and prosecuting crimes against kids was time-consuming, inefficient, and confusing for everyone involved.

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Other times kids faced a bewildering array of overlapping agencies, departments, and government units.

This meant re-hashing details over and over and over, sometimes for years. And despite the best intentions, a case could still fail to reach a court as much as half of the time because a prosecutor faces inconsistent and conflicting testimony due to fading memories — all because of wasted time.

The path to justice and healing revolves around the CAC 2

Other times kids and families could find justice, but not without years of investigations, discussions, meetings, and seemingly endless interviews.

Law enforcement had a job to do across multiple cities or states, prosecutors needed clear evidence quickly, child services caseworkers had jobs to do with limited resources and time, and rarely were medical or mental health professionals involved until much, much later. Families navigated the process with confusion and frustration and were left on their own.

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But with a CAC, the path from informed crime to justice and healing became much simpler.

Kids and their families come to a CAC once. While there, trained forensic interviewers gather neutral, child-friendly testimony of a child’s lived experience. Law enforcement, caseworkers, prosecutors, medical and mental health professionals, and victim advocates come together with no delay and minimal intrusion with the family. At the CAC, this multidisciplinary team works together efficiently to prepare investigations and prosecution, a healthcare plan, and long-term support.

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The path to justice takes many forms. But with CACs central to the process when crimes against children happen, the path to justice is simpler, easier to understand, and less scary to kids and their non-offending caregivers. Prosecutors get higher conviction rates, law enforcement happily avoids re-traumatizing kids, healthcare providers are available at low or no cost, caseworkers reduce their burden, and our communities are safer as kids grow into happy, healthy adults.

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