It was a day for recognizing the rights of crime victims at the Capitol. Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen says the state Department of Justice and local prosecutes and law enforcement do all they can to make victims of crime in Wisconsin whole again, while recognizing that there is a limit to what can be done. “Once you've been victimized, we can't take that back,” said Van Hollen.
The ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda commemorated National Crime Victims' Rights Week, the courage of crime victims and the tenth anniversary of the creation of the Wisconsin Crime Victims' Rights Board. Calumet County District Attorney Ken Kratz chairs that board, and says the past decade has seen a change in attitudes towards victims in the state's criminal justice culture. Van Hollen says he'd like to see establishment of a victim witness protection plan in Wisconsin, and, together with the Milwaukee County District Attorney's office has a applied for a federal grant to start a pilot program there.
