April 2002 Volume 83 Number 4 "serving the protectors"
Giving all for victims
By Brett Williams

A group of eight specialist police officers in South Australia deals solely with the needs of victims of crime. Known as victim contact officers, these cops fulfill a role that can be as tough as any other in police work.

A murdered man’s widow once asked Belinda Masolatti to show her the crime-scene pictures of her husband’s dead body. For religious reasons, she had to be sure he had not died with his eyes open. Masolatti secured the pictures for her. They showed the woman what she wanted to see. She was reassured.

Masolatti, 35, confronts the anguish of newly shattered lives every working week. Many of the severely traumatized, who step forlornly into her small Port Adelaide LSA office for the first time, do so as trembling, emotional wrecks.

Gripped by paralyzing fear, some arrive already crying. Masolatti – calm amid the intense emotion – offers tissues and tells them to feel free to weep.

One might have suffered a brutal street bashing or feel violated after a home invasion. Another might be aghast at an offender’s lenient penalty, or what he or she sees as a pittance in court-ordered compensation.

Two of Masolatti’s counterparts – Mardi Dixon at the Major Crime squad and Robyn Crameri at Major Crash – just as often face the same palpable emotions she does.

Most of 31-year-old Dixon’s “clients” are people who, suffering “complete and utter shock”, feel totally isolated. Crameri sees an endless range of unpredictable reactions from those overwhelmed with grief.

These poor, afflicted people might emerge from different tragedies, but stand linked by the same sad label: victim of crime. Accordingly, they harbour a desperate need for help. And, as police victim contact officers (VCOs), Masolatti, Dixon and Crameri never rest until they bring that help to fruition.

Says 39-year-old Crameri: “Our job is to be an information and referral point; to make sure that people know what’s out there as far as resources for them.”

This might mean keeping an assault victim updated on the progress of his or her case – from the time of the offence through to a court outcome. Or, it might mean referring a traumatized robbery victim for counselling.

So, as victims pour every day into VCO rooms across metropolitan Adelaide, these officers strive to help them with “whatever needs they have”. The VCOs make clear, however, that they are neither counsellors nor social workers.

“I always stress to victims that I can refer them to professional counsellors,” says Masolatti. “But when you have someone in your office for an hour crying, you can’t tell me that we don’t counsel to a degree.”

And, when victims seek police-related information, VCOs themselves act as one of the resources of which Crameri speaks.

Dixon, attached to the Major Crime squad, faces many of the victim-related tasks that street cops dread. This year she went to a city hospital with three children who had to identify their murdered mother’s body. She watched as their tears flowed, and saw them become “quite hysterical”.

“It affects you emotionally,” she says. “You’d have to have ice running through your veins if there was no emotional effect when you’re looking at a family member who’s looking at their murdered mother, father or child.”

But, in this case, Dixon reminded herself that she had to remain strong, and focus only on the children’s needs.

“I remind myself when I’m looking at them (such victims) that it’s not my pain,” she says. “It’s their pain. I try to detach myself as much as possible.”

Among others with whom Dixon works are the confused, angry victims, who suffer nightmares and depression. Some even come to believe – albeit irrationally – that those who murdered their loved ones will kill them next.

These are intensely anxious people, who live with their desperation to see killers caught and tried. “There can be no greater loss,” says Dixon, “than losing someone close to you to a homicide.

“They feel no one understands, because not a lot of people lose someone close to them to a murder.

“(And) they’re often not told details, because it could jeopardize the investigation, so they think nothing’s happening but, of course, there’s quite a bit happening. That’s frustrating, because you feel like telling them and, of course, you can’t at that point.”

But Dixon keeps them as informed as she can, and answers all their endless questions about issues such as bail and home detention. She tries to have them understand that someone – she – is always available.

Crameri, too, reaches out to secondary victims who survive dead loved ones. In the aftermath of a fatal road accident, she is likely to attend a family home to deliver a soul-destroying death message.

Some receive the news with an outward calm, but others, she says, have simply collapsed into her arms, denying the death.

When Crameri found herself in just that position last year, she felt deeply responsible for a female victim’s welfare. The woman, part of a large family unit, had just lost an in-law. “It was just too overwhelming and she collapsed,” Crameri explains.

“You feel responsible to a point where you wouldn’t leave until you’re satisfied they’re safe and understand what’s happening. For a short time, you become part of that whole scene.”

Masolatti deals much less frequently with the effects of death on victims. But those with whom she does interact are primary victims – people directly affected by crime.

After a pharmacy hold-up in 1999, she worked with a female employee who, for her fifth time, had faced the threat of death at work. The robber in this case had backed his threat with a blood-filled syringe.

Although the woman had survived the four earlier robberies with seeming ease, she was now unable to cope. She lost her job and home, and, finally, her marriage broke down. As well, she later spent time in the Adelaide Clinic, but could never explain why the last robbery had tipped her over the edge.

Dealing with her case was tough for Masolatti. “It was sad to see a professional like her – someone who had coped with all those other incidents – now not coping,” she remembers.

“When trauma takes a hold of you, you don’t really have any control. I just referred her on for counselling, let her know what was happening with the investigation and judicial process, and provided support.”

“We’re people doing a job. We’re not robots – we have all the normal emotions.”

In their combined years of service as VCOs, Masolatti, Dixon and Crameri have worked with victims of every age, and from all social strata.

Stationed at Norwood some years ago, Masolatti sometimes found the eastern suburbs’ well-heeled were difficult victims with whom to deal. These were people who might have lost a $2,000 vase to a break-and-enter offence.

For the lack of a line of enquiry to follow, investigating officers might have promptly filed reports of such crimes. When they did, the affluent victims were quick to complain to Masolatti with the well-worn line: “I pay my taxes and I want something done.”

Today, in her western-suburbs post, her more difficult victims are those suffering mental health problems. These have included a woman who photographed her neighbour, whom she believed spied on her. Another woman – in her 70s – complained about her sister, whom she said stole property from her in 1960.

Says Masolatti: “You have to listen to them. You can’t just say: ‘Nick off’. You’ve got to be professional about it, and I often ask: ‘Are you seeing your local doctor currently?’

“They’ll often say: ‘Yeah, I’ve got some problems’. You talk about that, and it takes them away from what they came in for. That gives you a better idea of what they’re about.”

Difficult cases for Dixon are those in which victims dislike or distrust police, or come from criminal backgrounds. She says they might not expect VCOs to take them seriously.

But Masolatti – who recently worked with a female assault victim just out of jail – says: “We can’t fail to help them just because of their priors.”

In some cases, VCOs work with victims for years, as investigations and, later, court processes unfold. Masolatti once worked for three years with three elderly female victims of the same sex offender. So, one risk for VCOs, is victims who become emotionally attached to them.

Crameri suspects that, in cases of death, surviving victims sometimes see VCOs as their last link with those lost. For that reason, she believes, they find it easy to make an attachment but difficult to break contact.

Dixon has worked with victims unable to “go a day or two without speaking to me”. Masolatti, too, has encountered over-dependent victims. “I had one whose daughter was murdered,” she says. “I was around the same age as her daughter and she latched on to me.

“You’ve got to sort of wean them off you, and make sure they don’t become too reliant.”

To deal with the problem, Masolatti uses a simple strategy. She lengthens the time between meetings with victims and makes certain to have other services in place, such as counselling.

Some police in operational fields struggle to understand the attraction to VCO work. But Masolatti, Dixon and Crameri find great satisfaction in what they do. Each relishes her opportunities to help.

But what is the job’s impact on their lives? At the end of her shifts, Crameri unwinds as she drives home but might still feel “washed out and just emotionally drained”.

“We’re people doing a job,” she says. “We’re not robots – we have all the normal emotions. It (the work) makes me more gentle and certainly more compassionate… "

Masolatti has concluded – after nine years as a VCO – that human beings are “capable of anything under certain circumstances”. So, she has come to lack trust in people, but sees that, compared to victims, she is “lucky”.

Dixon feels the job helps put VCOs’ own lives and problems into perspective. “You soon realize your own problems can be very minor,” she says. “It makes you appreciate your own lives.

“You certainly hope you never have to suffer the same sort of pain these people are suffering. You wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”

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