Palos Park Police Chief to Study Victim Advocacy

Palos Park Police Commissioner Dan Polk has announced that Police Chief Joe Miller will be participating in The City University of New York, (CUNY) Medgar Evers College Victim Advocacy program this fall.

The Certificate Course is an intensive program designed to train students to provide highly skilled crime victim assistance, starting with the study of the devastating effects crime can have on its victims and the how the legal system and system of government, civil and criminal litigation processes affects victims

Students also learn to identify the elements of the grief process and PTSD and how to work with the victim’s family, as well as best practices in death notification and support after death notification and advocacy skills for working with family members and victims

The course covers enhancing skill sets to help Identify suicide behavioral distress signals, fine tune techniques for assisting suicidal persons and tools for suicide prevention, patterns of domestic violence, characteristics of abusers and victims and help counsel victims of domestic violence

Commissioner Polk noted, “Continuing education and research in policing well beyond general police course work is imperative and can only help officers learn new techniques and to be at the forefront of the latest law-enforcement, practices, tools and technology.

Chief Miller has been a Criminal Justice professor at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois and Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, for over 10 years.