The National Crime Victim Law Institute in Portland, Oregon, is awarding federal funding to create five new crime victim rights clinics around the country. One of them will be in Missouri. Ed Stout, Executive Director of the Crime Victim Advocacy Center of St. Louis says this funding for the Center will provide much needed legal assistance to those who have been victimized by criminal acts. Stout says the greatest help that can be given to a victim of crime is to imform that person of his or her rights under Missouri law. Generally, those rights say a victim of crime is entitled to be informed, present, and heard at every stage of the criminal justice system in which the accused or convicted criminal has those rights.