Seniors vs Crime Region 4, which includes Lake, Marion and Sumter counties, held its 10th annual training for their volunteers – or “senior sleuths” as they are called – Thursday morning at the Rohan Recreation Center. Seniors vs. Crimes, a special project of the Florida Attorney General, is a statewide program whose aim is to reduce the victimization of senior citizens who are often targeted for specific crimes or scams based on their age.
First up in the series of speakers invited to update and train current Seniors vs. Crime volunteers was Royce Robbins, State IT Director for Seniors vs. Crime. He updated the audience on the brand new internal computer system for Seniors vs. Crimes volunteers called the Civil Complaint Information Center (CCIC). In the works since mid-2015, Region 4 served as the Beta tester for CCIC. The program is now being rolled out to all the state offices. The new system puts a wealth of information at the volunteers’ fingertips, allows offices easier communication with each other and significantly speeds up access to information regarding on-going and closed cases.
What this means for the general public is a very quick answer if someone wants to see if a company or vendor they are considering using has ever had a complaint filed against them.
“We really encourage people to check companies out with us before they do business,” said Steve Renico, Region 4 director.
Anyone wanting to contact Seniors vs. Crime can click on the project offices tab in the website, www.seniorsvscrime.com, to find the contact information for the office in their area.
Also speaking at the training were representatives from the Department of Business and Professional Regulation and an attorney from the Attorney General’s office in Tampa.
“We asked the attorney to come in and take us through the process they have to go through when a case reaches the state level,” said Renico. “There is a lot they have to do and hoops they have to jump through, which explains the sometimes seemingly slow pace with which the cases move through the system.”
