The Tunica County Sheriff's Office has received funding from the National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators (NAVAA) through a grant from the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), within the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, to promote community awareness of crime victims' rights and services during the 2022 National Crime Victims' Rights Week.

            The awarded funding will be used to host the Clothesline Project, a powerful visual display that is a vehicle for people affected by violence to express their emotions by decorating a shirt. The shirts are hung on a clothesline to be viewed by others as testimony to the problem of violence. This event allows us to shine light on all types of violence, and highlight acts of domestic violence that occur in our community.  The Project is part of National Crime Victims' Rights Week, an annual observance that takes place April 24-30, 2022.

            "The support from NAVAA and OVC for our 2022 National Crime Victims' Rights Week activities will help us help crime victims," said Tunica County Sheriff, K.C. Hamp, Sr.  "Members of our community are encouraged to help promote justice through service to crime victims by joining our 2022 National Crime Victims' Rights Week activities and supporting victim assistance programs on a daily basis."

First designated by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, National Crime Victims' Rights Week increases general public awareness of, and knowledge about the wide range of rights and services available to people who have been victimized by crime.  The theme for 2022 National Crime Victims' Rights Week is "Rights, access, equity for all victims".

            Since 2004, the NCVRW Community Awareness Project has provided financial and technical assistance to more than 1000 community projects that promote victim and public awareness activities, and innovative approaches to victim outreach and public education about victims' rights and services during National Crime Victims' Rights Week. The Tunica County Sheriff's Office Clothesline Project was one of the 50 recommended by NAVAA and selected for funding by OVC for 2022 from the 240 applications that were submitted nationwide.      

            For additional information about 2022 National Crime Victims' Rights Week activities or about victims' rights and services in Tunica County, please contact TCSO at 662-363-1411, or visit our website at www.tunicamssheriff.com.  For information about national efforts to promote 2022 National Crime Victims' Rights Week, please visit the Office for Victims of Crime website at www.ovc.gov.

The National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators is a non-profit organization that represents the 56 state agencies that distribute money from the federal Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) Crime Victims Fund to more than 4,000 direct victim assistance service providers. The money in the Crime Victims Fund comes from fines collected from offenders convicted of federal crimes and not from U.S. taxpayers.

Photo from 2020 Clothesline Project.