The Crime Victims' Institute was created by the 74th Regular Session of the Texas Legislature as specified in Chapter 412, Subchapters A, B, C and D of the Government Code and other related citations.
The Legislature created the Institute in 1995 with the intent to:
In May, 2003, Governor Rick Perry signed Senate Bill 1245 which directed moving the Institute from the Office of the Attorney General to Sam Houston State University. Sam Houston State University continues the legislative mission and directives set forth for the Institute.
Sam Houston State University was founded in 1879, and is located in Huntsville, Texas. There are five colleges within the University: Arts and Sciences, Business Administration, Criminal Justice, Education and Applied Science, and Humanities and Social Sciences. There are 84 undergraduate degree programs, 47 masters' programs, and 4 doctoral programs. The University has an enrollment of over 15,000 students, who come from across the State of Texas and 46 foreign countries.
The Crime Victims' Institute of Texas (CVI) is located in the Criminal Justice Center at Sam Houston State University. The Criminal Justice Center houses the College of Criminal Justice, one of the leading criminal justice education programs in the nation. The College was created by a legislative mandate in 1967 to provide research, teaching, and service to the criminal justice field. The College of Criminal Justice inaugurated criminal justice education in the State of Texas, was one of the first criminal justice programs in the United States, and has been a model for other criminal justice programs throughout the world. Today the College of Criminal Justice is ranked among the top five Ph.D. criminology/criminal justice programs in the United States. Currently, there are over 1400 undergraduate, masters and Ph.D. students enrolled in over 6 different degree programs making the College one of the largest academic programs in the nation.
Among the degree programs of the College of Criminal Justice is the Bachelor of Arts in Victim Studies. This is an inter-disciplinary degree involving all four colleges and six departments at Sam Houston State University. The departments of Criminal Justice, Psychology, Health Education, Management and Marketing, Political Science, and Sociology within the Colleges of Criminal Justice, Education, Business, and Arts and Science collaborate to offer the Victim Studies Degree. The Bachelor of Arts in Victim Studies is designed to prepare students for careers as professionals in victim services delivery. Graduates will have a broad range of knowledge about victim services delivery, agency operations, inter-agency collaboration, direct victim services, traumatology, and criminal justice procedures. Graduates will also possess an understanding of the special needs of crime victims, a fundamental understanding of the victim experience, basic management principles of service delivery, and basic legal principles as they apply to service delivery.
Within the Criminal Justice Center are also housed the