Dozens of Cleveland violent crime survivors, loved ones of victims and supporters gathered in the morning dark yesterday to drive to Columbus to make their voices heard at the Ohio state capitol, where they were joined by peers from Cincinnati, Springfield, Dayton and Toledo.
The group is advocating for victims’ rights and supporting recently passed legislation reforming victims’ compensation and taking a rehabilitative approach to public safety that prioritizes reducing recidivism.
“Today we want to let our legislators know that we need more funding for trauma recovery centers, there are currently eight in the state of Ohio and we want to make sure that they can continue their services but we need to be able to see more victims because, still, more victims go untreated because we lack resources to be able to help them,” said Brenda Glass, founder and CEO of the Brenda Glass Multipurpose Trauma Center (BGMTC), one of two such facilities in the Cleveland area.
Trauma recovery centers are community-based organizations designed to address all of a victim’s needs in one place, simplifying the recovery process and reducing the number of people falling through the gaps left by bureaucracy, transportation problems and other difficulties.
BGMTC provides mental health counseling, case management, peer support, safety, relocation assistance and has its own safe shelter onsite. A survivor herself, Glass stresses the importance of the resources trauma centers provide at survivors’ most difficult times.
“When I was young, I was raped at gunpoint by people I trusted. I was 13 years old, I couldn’t tell my mom, I couldn’t tell anyone. There was a fear of us being taken from our parents because of that and so we just kind of keep things to ourselves while we’re young,” Glass said. “As I got older I realized that it had a negative impact on my life. I was very angry, very bitter about the things that had happened and I somehow wanted people to pay so I got involved in abusive relationships thinking that the persons that harmed me were abusive and so somehow I could make these now new people pay but ultimately I ended up being the one paying all the time anyway, right? But there was nobody I could turn to.”
In Columbus, the group, which Glass estimated to be about 200 people, held a news conference followed by a vigil for those lost to violent crime. They were joined by Democratic Representative Tavia Galonski from Akron, Republican Representative Brett Hillyer from Uhrichsville, Ohio state director for the Alliance for Safety and Justice Candace Williams (ASJ), and Dyesha Darby, a crime survivor and Ohio Statewide Manager for Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice (CSSJ).
In addition to further support and funding for trauma centers, Glass wants legislators to recognize and take bipartisan action to protect victims’ housing and employment.
“There are times when [crime victims] are hospitalized and they get evicted because they’re not able to go to work and pay their bills or people don’t want to rent to them because they have been a crime victim and sometimes they get evicted because the landlord knows that crime happened in that home or near the home and they don’t want that around them,” Glass said.
Similarly, she says, survivors’ employment is often threatened because they are unable to work or have to find a new job because their assailant knows where they work. Glass wants legislators to protect victims’ unemployment benefits until they can find new employment.
For Irma George, who lost her son to gun violence in Florida, gun control and additional mental health resources are also necessary.
“I hope to see people listening, paying attention because I don’t think anybody’s been listening to what’s been going on because if they were I don’t think we would have some positive change right now,” George said. “It could be me next, it could be you next, it could be anybody in this room because guns don’t have eyes.”
Glass is part of a movement calling for a reexamination of the ways victimization is linked to crime and violence. Groups like CSSJ and ASJ have surveyed victims of violent crime and analyzed how decades of “tough on crime” policies have affected public safety. They say that chronic disregard of victims and their trauma is inherently linked to future crime and mass incarceration.
“What happens is, when you’re victimized, you become angry and bitter and you lash out at anybody. Oftentimes people have to commit a crime–like harm somebody–in order to stay alive or protect their family and so it’s a repeated cycle,” said Glass. “Your children see what’s happening; They lose loved ones or they watch their parents beat up in domestic violence episodes and so then they become angry and bitter. And so that’s what we want to do with these trauma recovery centers: we want to stop that cycle.”
Coming soon: Cleveland Scene Daily newsletter. We’ll send you a handful of interesting Cleveland stories every morning. Subscribe now to not miss a thing.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
This article appears in Mar 8-21, 2023.