Advocates are bracing for a major funding cut to a critical source of support for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse that will take effect later this year.
A total of 37%, or $700 million, will be slashed from the national Crime Victims Fund, an essential lifeline for state and local services such as domestic violence hotlines and legal assistance for survivors, when the government’s next fiscal year begins in October, reports The Guardian.
“The consequences of not being able to access services are so dire. And we worry, of course, that it is deadly,” said Monica McLaughlin of the National Network to End Domestic Violence.
Congress passed the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) in 1984, which established the Crime Victims Fund. It collects fines and penalties from people and corporations convicted of federal crimes and distributes that funding to states, which issue grants to state and local victim service agencies.
In 2018, deposits into the fund were at a record high: $4.4 billion. It will stand at only $1.2 billion next year.
The crisis in VOCA funding stems from seemingly arcane bureaucratic tweaks to government budgeting mechanisms that have inadvertently depleted the fund in recent years.
In 2017, the Department of Justice was increasingly settling federal cases without prosecution. Money from those settlements went into the general treasury instead of the Crime Victims Fund. Congress passed legislation in 2021 to redirect these funds into the Crime Victims Fund, but this change has been too little, too late.
At the same time, Congress has been transferring funds from the Crime Victims Fund to programs established by the Violence Against Women Act.
While VOCA funding has been hard to predict because of its reliance on case outcomes, these factors have led to feast-or-famine cycles: a healthy Crime Victims Fund one year can sour the next, and victim support programs are funded at the expense of one another. A tipping point is now approaching as the fund dwindles and federal grants are running out.
More than 6 million victims and survivors stand to lose essential services, including many domestic violence survivors who depend on VOCA-funded services – at a time when domestic violence and reproductive coercion are on the rise and service providers are already struggling to respond to demand.
During a single 24-hour period in September 2023, survivors across the US made 13,335 domestic violence service requests that could not be met, says the National Network to End Domestic Violence. That’s a 41% increase in unmet service requests from 2021.
National Children’s Alliance CEO Teresa Huizar said in an interview with States Newsroom that child advocacy centers, which help connect children who have survived sexual or domestic abuse to essential services, have no fat left to trim in their budgets.
“What children’s advocacy centers are really looking at now are a set of extremely hard choices,” Huizar said. “Which kids to serve, which kids to turn away? CACs that have never had to triage cases previously, now will have to. CACs that have never had a waitlist for mental health services will now have long, lengthy waitlists to get kids in for therapy.”
“I mean, imagine being a kid who’s been sexually abused and being told you’re going to have to wait six months to see a counselor,” Huizar added. “It’s terrible.”
New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, chairwoman of the spending panel that sets the cap every year based on the dwindling revenue, and Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran, the subcommittee’s ranking member, both indicated that a fix is in the works, but declined to provide details.
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