The Victim Receipt: How to craft the perfect “Victim Acknowledgment Message”
The history of the receipt goes back thousands of years. In fact, historians recognize the receipt as one of the oldest examples of writing. The concept behind a receipt is straightforward: It serves as an acknowledgment that a transaction between two parties has occurred. In the world of commerce, receipts are most often an acknowledgement that a customer has paid a certain amount of money for specified goods or services.
Leading e-commerce companies like Amazon, for example, will email an acknowledgment to customers as soon as they purchase something. These acknowledgments include not only the details of the transaction, but they also include important information such as what to expect next and when to expect it.
This type of acknowledgment is often missing for customers of law enforcement. Let’s consider the perspective of a crime victim who just finished speaking with an officer about their recent vehicle burglary:
I showed the officer the broken window of my car and told him what was stolen. He asked a few more questions and then handed me a generic business card. He wrote a “report number” on the business card and said, “Don’t lose this, this number is important.” He told me a detective might call me, but he wasn’t able to tell me when. I thanked him, and he rushed to the next call. I don’t know what to do now. I guess I’ll just wait to see what happens.
There is a tremendous opportunity here to empower these crime victims by giving them more information, setting realistic expectations, connecting them to additional resources, training them in crime prevention, enlisting their help through community programs, and making them an advocate for their local, law enforcement agency. Imagine if law enforcement agencies could automatically do all of the above for every crime victim they encounter without expending additional manpower. It may sound impossible, but we help law enforcement agencies do exactly that every single day.
The SPIDR Tech platform integrates with an agency’s records management system and automatically sends detailed acknowledgement messages to crime victims via email and SMS. It does this with no additional work required by agency employees.
If your law enforcement agency was able to automatically send acknowledgement messages to victims of crime, what should those messages say?
We’ve spent the last few years working with law enforcement agencies to craft victim acknowledgment messages that fit their needs. Here are a few tips to help your agency do the same. We find it helpful to separate these tips into three categories: strongly recommended, moderately advised, and gently suggested.
Strongly Recommended
We recommend greeting your crime victims by name, and including the basic information associated with the victim’s police report.
We can use Amazon’s receipts as an example of how this is done effectively:
In the context of law enforcement, basic information should include:
● The date and time the report was filed.
● The general category of crime (or even the crime code) associated.
● The name of the Officer/Deputy who took the report.
● The report number.
In practice, the start of your message may look something like this:
Moderately Advised
Undoubtedly, companies like Amazon send these acknowledgment messages to customers so they can consistently provide the best service possible.
Another reason they do this is to reduce the likelihood that customers need to call customer support to ask for more information. This is based on the practice of proactively providing customers with answers to questions they would likely ask on the phone.
Consider how many times crime victims have called to ask your agency about “what’s next” with their investigation. How many of those phone calls could have been reduced with proactive messaging?
There are four crucial questions that each acknowledgment message should answer:
What are the next steps?
Ex: Your crime report was submitted to the Investigations Unit to determine if it fits the criteria required for detective assignment.
Understanding next steps makes it easier for victims to trust the process.
What are the criteria for investigation?
Ex: In order for burglary cases to be assigned a detective, they need to fit the following criteria:
● There needs to be evidence that a crime occurred
● Sufficient leads need to exist
This is highly important as it sets reasonable expectations for the victim. If they know their case does not fit the criteria, they are less likely to expect an investigation.
How long should I wait?
Ex: Due to heavy caseloads, it may take 2–4 weeks for a detective to be assigned to your case.
Most victims will wait the quoted time period before calling to ask if there are updates. For example, if Amazon tells a customer their item will be shipped on March 20th, they are less likely to call on March 19th asking where it is.
Who should I contact?
Ex: If you have not heard from a Detective within 2–4 weeks, or if you have important information to add to your crime report, please call the Investigations Unit at (555) 347–0102.
When the victim calls the general line (or worse, the emergency line) and gets bounced around, it’s both frustrating for the victim and time consuming for the law enforcement agency.
Gently Suggested
If you have accomplished the above, you can feel confident that your crime victim is informed and understands what to expect and when to expect it. There are many other pieces of information, however, that can be added to get the most out of each message. See below for some examples:
Crime Prevention Tips
The best way to fight crime is to prevent it from happening. Arm your crime victims with knowledge that helps them ensure they don’t become victims again.
Crime Definitions
Most people don’t know the difference between burglary and robbery or assault and battery. Explaining this to them helps them better understand the legal process surrounding their case.
Victim Resources
Your agency may have a victim coordinator or a community-based victim advocacy group that may be useful to your crime victims. Be sure to provide the victim with the appropriate contact information.
Crime Statistics
If your agency provides crime mapping or crime statistics on your website, this is a good opportunity to attach a link to those resources so that the victim can better understand crime trends in their area.
Community Programs
Most agencies have community partnership opportunities in the form of neighborhood watch programs or citizen academies. We believe that community members are the most willing to participate in these programs immediately after becoming victims of crime themselves.
Social Media
Does your agency have a Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube page? Be sure to link your profiles in your acknowledgment messages so that you can gain more community followers.
Newsletters
If your agency has email or paper newsletters, this is a great opportunity to link to an area where victims can sign up to receive those newsletters on a regular basis.
Upcoming Events
Acknowledgment message templates are not set in stone. You can update them as often as you want to include upcoming community events such as Coffee with a Cop, National Night Out or neighborhood meetings.
Not all of the above suggestions will apply to your agency. It’s important to pick and choose what you deem relevant, important, and feasible. See below for a simple example of a message that was compiled based on a number of the suggestions above:
