Bob Kouns and Dee Dee Kouns papers, 1973-2017

Doris Doreen Dunn McDonald Kouns, known as Dee Dee, was born in 1928 in Corvallis, Oregon. In 1947, she married Navy veteran Karen Roy "Mac" MacDonald. The couple had three children: Michael McDonald, Patrick McDonald, and Valerie McDonald. Karen Roy McDonald died in a swimming accident in 1954. Subsequently, Dee Dee Kouns remarried, to Robert "Bob" Kouns; they had a son, Kevin Kouns. In 1969, the family moved to Portland, Oregon, where Bob Kouns and Dee Dee Kouns lived until 1999.

In 1980, Dee Dee Kouns' daughter Valerie McDonald went missing in San Francisco, California. Following a two-year investigation, police determined she had been murdered. Bob Kouns and Dee Dee Kouns' frustration with how the investigation was handled spurred them to become active in the anti-crime movement. They founded the group Crime Victims United, which lobbied for stricter sentencing laws and victims rights legislation. Bob Kouns and Dee Dee Kouns officially retired from the group in 1997, but remained active as advisors to the organization. Bob Kouns died in 2004; Dee Dee Kouns died in 2017.

Crime Victims United was founded by Bob Kouns and Dee Dee Kouns in 1983 in Portland, Oregon. The organization lobbied for legislation relating to criminal justice, including stricter sentencing laws and initiatives to add a victims rights clause to the Oregon state constitution. One of the more significant laws sponsored by the organization was Measure 11, which passed in the 1994 election, and which imposed mandatory minimum sentences without the possibility of parole for a number of criminal offenses, applicable even to first-time offenders.