By Gary K. King
New Mexico Attorney General
At the age when many teenagers are just discovering the choices that life holds in store for them, one 14-year-old girl learned she was being married off to her own adult male cousin in a "marriage" arranged by the leader of a religious sect.
No, this didn't happen in some far off part of the world where such things used to be common; this is going on right now, right next door in Arizona and Texas. A polygamist sect leader faces charges there for ordering the marriages of teen girls to older relatives.
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said, "It's a crime to abuse children, and there are no exceptions."
My colleague's statement is testimony to how all of us in law enforcement today feel about such crimes. But consider this; the federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act didn't become the law of the land until 1974. We have come a long way since then in terms of protecting the rights of victims.
The federal Victim and Witness Protection Act was enacted in 1982. In 1990 came the Victims' Rights and Restitution Act. In 1994 the Violence Against Women Act was passed, followed in 1998 by the Crime Victims with Disabilities Act. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act took effect on the federal level in 2000.
On the local level, New Mexico put the Victims of Crime Act on the books in 1978. The Act's purpose, in part, is to ensure that "victims of violent crimes are treated with dignity, respect and sensitivity" and that "victim's rights are protected by law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and judges as vigorously as are the rights of criminal defendants." I am proud to have successfully sponsored our state's Family Violence Protection Act in 1987.
And in the 2008 session, my office shepherded through the Legislature our state's first-ever law to make human trafficking a crime in New Mexico. This new law is intended to help stem the flow through New Mexico of the burgeoning human slave trade and provide some measure of help to the helpless and often forgotten victims of human trafficking.
But even with all these advances over the years to protect victims of all types of crime, the tragedies continue. There were last year's Virginia Tech murders and other random attacks at schools, shopping malls and work places. In New Mexico, hardly a day goes by without news of senseless violence or abuse. The victims are from all walks of life, all ages— and no place is immune. In the years since September 11, statistics show nearly 100,000 people have been murdered in the United States; 23 million Americans become crime victims every year.
National Crime Victims' Rights Week, observed nationwide April 13-19, calls on all of us to think about the life-changing impact crime has on victims and their loved ones, and to make justice for all victims an urgent priority for our community. The Attorney General's Office is taking part in a number of observances, and victims' rights are of the highest priority in my office. Yet, we must do more as a society to reduce or stop the behavior that ultimately ends in adding more people to the list of victims.
As individuals we should promise ourselves to be more observant in our own neighborhoods. Perhaps we could make a point of calling on the elderly couple on our block just to say hello and see that they are OK. And even though it goes against the 'I don't want to get involved' mentality that many have adopted in these times, we want to encourage you to get involved in neighborhood watch programs, organized youth activities that keep kids off the streets and other locally based programs that fight crime in our neighborhoods. Collectively, and even with the smallest of commitments of time and energy on our part, we can make a difference.
The theme of this year's national observance is "Justice for Victims. Justice for All." Let's try to make it more than a slogan; let's try to make it the way we live.
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