Utah’s Children’s Justice Centers are in nearly every county in the state and are a safe place for abused children to talk about and provide evidence regarding what they’ve been through. These CJCs look like residential homes to provide a comfortable, secure environment for interviewing young victims of violent crime.
The Utah Attorney General’s Office oversees the state’s CJCs, designed as important “safe houses.” There, specially trained investigators help children talk about what they’ve been through as part of an ongoing investigation. What they say can be used in court.
It’s a compassionate way to deal with the dispassionate prosecution of a criminal case. In this follow-up, two-part, Legally Speaking special, we first spoke to the CJC’s Deputy Director, Heather Stewart, who loves to educate people about the CJC. In part two, we hear from Matthew Janzen from the Davis County Attorney’s Office about the CJC’s importance there.
