Shelby County Prosecutor’s Office Victim Assistance Coordinator Becky Miller was chosen to receive the Indiana Prosecuting Attorney’s Council (IPAC) 2021 Victim Advocate of the Year Award. 

Miller received the award during a ceremony at the Hyatt Regency in Indianapolis on Monday.

Miller was nominated for the award by Shelby County Prosecutor Brad Landwerlen, who made the presentation, along with IPAC Executive Director Chris Naylor.  Landwerlen told the audience some of the reasons that Miller was chosen for the award, pointing out that she had survived a violent relationship.  Miller refused to be forever defined as a victim, and, after eight years of working through other people’s victimization issues while working for the DCS, joined the Shelby County Prosecutor’s Office, where she has been the Victim Assistance Coordinator for 11 years.  Her personal experience, combined with her experiences while working with troubled families at DCS, gave her a hard-earned special ability and drive to help victims.

Landwerlen also says Miller is not only excellent at providing resources, assistance, and guidance to victims (or serving as a willing ear at times of need), but she performs various other acts that are above and beyond the requirements of her job as well.  She organizes an annual Victim Vigil, where various victims and surviving family members of victims lost, both local and from across central Indiana, attend for a time of remembrance.  She oversees a cell phone program in which people donate their old cell phones, which she digitally wipes and then distributes to the hospital and to police officers to give to victims who don’t have a phone, whose phone is taken by their abuser, or whose phone must be taken temporarily by police as part of the investigation. 

Becky Miller is also an active member of the Sex Abuse Response Team and is voluntarily on-call 24 hours per day, often responding in the middle of the evening, and sometimes even accompanying victims in the exam room.  She also organizes the Prosecutor’s Anti-Drug Calendar project each year, and works various projects with Turning Point to benefit victims.  She regularly performs other tasks to help victims – such as recently working to find a therapist who would go to a victim’s home, because the victim was too traumatized by the crime to leave home to get the much-needed therapy.

The Shelby County Prosecutor says he is proud to have Becky as a part of their team, and of all she does to help crime victims through the most difficult times in their lives.  Her empathy, compassion, and dedication to victims know no bounds.  She truly makes Shelby County a better place.  This award was well-earned.