Although Marshall has only been a courthouse dog for Thurston County since last December. He’s already having an impact by providing comfort and support to crime victims and their families.
Marshall has been working in the Thurston County court system since last December. Photo from Seattle Times.
Experts have found that having a dog in the room actually counters the effects of a hormone that can prevent a crime victim from talking about abuse he suffered.
In extremely stressful situations, the body releases a hormone called cortisol.
High cortisol levels cause the higher functions of the body, like speech and memory, to shut down.
Courthouse dogs helps calm a crime victims by allowing crime victims to verbalize what happened to them.
The idea of using dogs to help calm crime victims originated with Former King County Prosecutor Ellen O’Neill-Stevens.
Because of her work King County was the first jurisdiction in the country to have a dog specifically trained to help crime victims and work full time in a prosecutor’s office or with any government agency.
After she left the Prosecutor’s office O’Neill-Stevens started Courthouse Dogs, a nonprofit with a mission to “promote justice with compassion through the use of professionally trained facility dogs to provide emotional support to everyone in the justice system.”
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