Captain Lori Luhnow, NFJCA President Casey Gwinn, and San Diego FJC Honored by Attorney General Eric Holder

San Diego, CA - August 1, 2011 - For their work with the San Diego Family Justice Center, San Diego Police Department Captain Lori Luhnow and founder Casey Gwinn were honored today as finalists for the 2011 L. Anthony Sutin Civic Imagination Award from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (the COPS Office).

The Sutin Civic Imagination Award recognizes a law enforcement officer whose innovative civic interaction has transformed public safety in his or her community. The award also recognizes a community leader that partners with law enforcement.

Captain Luhnow's management of San Diego's nationally recognized center for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault and their children, the San Diego Family Justice Center, has resulted in greater care for victims and reduced injuries and deaths from abusive relationships.

Gwinn has taken the San Diego model for centralized services and translated it into an international program that has seen similar domestic violence centers open throughout the world in locations such as England, Canada, Australia, The Netherlands, Jordan, Guam, and Mexico.

Since the inception of the San Diego Family Justice Center, the domestic violence homicide rate in the city of San Diego has declined over eighty percent, continuing a nearly twenty year decline as a result of the consistent collaborative community efforts first promoted by Gwinn and other community leaders in the 1980’s.

At the awards ceremony, Attorney General Holder remarked that, “Throughout her career, Lori has placed a premium on listening to victims of family violence, and ensuring that their voices are heard and their best interests are protected. In just two years, she has effectively rebuilt the Center from the ground up – and increased the number of community partnerships by one hundred percent. Her work has not only comforted survivors and inspired new stakeholders to becoming involved – it has, quite literally, saved and transformed lives.”

"San Diego is extremely proud of the high quality professional leadership that Captain Luhnow provided to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault and the Family Justice Center," stated Gael Strack, CEO and Co-Founder of the National Family Justice Alliance. "She is an extremely important member of our community and she has made a significant difference in the lives of hundreds of women and families who were involved in abusive relationships."

The L. Anthony Sutin Civic Imagination Award is named in memory of Tony Sutin, who served as a founder and Deputy Director of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services from its creation in 1994 until 1996, when he became the principal deputy to the Associate Attorney General of the United States.