Victims for Justice calls them an underserved population.
The victims and families of homicides and some of those cases are still unresolved in the Alaska Court System, which for many is a painful process to endure.
And for one man who got shot while also witnessing his cousin get shot and killed right in front of him, seeing the case still awaiting trial after three years has he and his family lost.
It's a day Dennis Johnson will never forget.
The day he and his cousin Dewing Matos got shot inside the Dimond Center Mall.
"The homicide occurred at 6:18 pm on February 27th on 2010," Johnson said. "I was the other shooting victim in the case, fortunately I survived and Edwing unfortunately lost his life to this."
"I live with it every day, I wake up and I remember the shooting, I remember the defendants face and the shooting, I remembered what happened."
It's been more than three years and the man accused of the crime, Terence Gray still hasn't had a trial.
A slow process in the wheels of justice that Johnson says should not take this long.
"This is a homicide that was caught on video camera, it was multiple eye witnesses that occurred at very peak time in the Dimond Center," Johnson said.
He owns Alaska Pretrial Services which provides offender monitoring systems for defendants.
He deals with attorneys on both sides and blames the delay on concessions made in the courts and the revolving door of attorneys in the case.
"There have been defense attorney changes after changes after changes through the public defender's office, you have a public defender that had to take maternity leave," Johnson said.
What Johnson is going through is pretty common according to Victims for Justice.
"Our case load encompasses probably at least 300 people or more in a given year," said Rachael Gaedeke, an advocate for Victims for Justice who says they work with families to keep them involved in the process and offer a sympathetic ear.
"How long it takes, what the trial will look like, just keeping them so they are not in the dark and they know what to expect with each case," Gaedeke said. "It's long and painful for the people involved family, some cases take up to six years or more to completely get finished with the sentencing."
It's a juggling act to get justice.
But state deputy district attorney Clint Campion says it also means ensuring that each defendant has a fair trial.
"Both sides need to be on equal footing in terms of understanding what information is available," Ccampion said. "It's hard to tell one victim that their case is less important than another victims, we don't typically say that, we try to triage the cases and get them to trial as soon as we can."
"I understand that the defendant has rights, a trial and to be judged by a jury of his peers, but at some point there has to be some consideration given to the victims and the families of those victims," Johnson said.
Johnson wants the pain to go away so he and his family can at least try to find closure.
"It lives in my mind and in my visions and in my dreams every day that I wake up and every day that I go to sleep, I relive it," Johnson said. "This is something that I need, that my five children need, and that my wife needs."
State prosecutors say another reason why cases are delayed is the dozens of homicide cases they deal with at any given time along with the hundreds of other types of cases to prosecute.
Deputy district attorney Clint Campion says that creates challenges because with witness testimony and memories fading over time, they work to get cases put to trial as soon as possible.
The Terence Gray case is scheduled for trial in November.
Contact Corey Allen-Young