Jeff Dion: Fights for Victim's Rights

The Bristlecone Project is an awareness campaign of 1in6.org. Photographs and text by David Lisak, Ph.D.

When he was seven years old, Jeff was sexually abused by an older juvenile. He didn’t tell his parents because he thought that he had done something wrong, and that he would get into trouble. When he was 14, Jeff’s world was shattered when his sister was murdered by a serial killer. Barely a teenager, Jeff wrote to the police department requesting copies of their reports – he wanted to know what had happened to his sister – but they would not send them. In the early ’80s, the crime victims’ rights movement had barely emerged.

It is little wonder then that today Jeff is an attorney, and that for 16 years he has fought tirelessly for the rights of crime victims, as an attorney with the National Center for Victims of Crime, where he currently serves as the Director of the National Crime Victim Bar Association. He receives many calls from male survivors, men just beginning to recognize the harm that was done to them by the abuse they suffered. Jeff knows what they are going through, having walked the same road. From his own experience, he knows the power of “breaking down the walls of isolation,” of sitting in a room with others who have experienced similar traumas. And he hopes that by being open about his own history he will make it easier for men to reach for the help they need to begin healing themselves.