Congress and the Obama administration avoided a government shutdown last month when it struck a budget deal that both sides could agree on. Unfortunately, one result of the compromise is that the federal Crime Victims Fund is being raided for $1.5 billion. Domestic violence victims, abused children, and families of murder victims, among others, will pay the price.
The Crime Victims Fund was created in 1984 by the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA), which collects money from fines on people who have committed crimes and sets it aside to pay for services for crime victims.
For the first 16 years, the fund paid out almost everything it collected, but the amount was capped in 2000 as a way to ensure there was a consistent stream of funding for victims nationwide. The fund has ballooned to almost $12 billion, primarily due to large sums paid by major banks and corporations to settle investigations by the Department of Justice under the Obama administration. Meanwhile, the amount to states has remained stagnant and victim advocates have struggled to serve crime victims needing the most basic of services such as shelter, counseling, and emergency needs.
In a twist of irony, Congress decided just last year to increase the amount of money that could be paid out to states for crime victims. As a result, Colorado is set to receive an increase in federal Crime Victims Fund support in the next year. The recently passed budget agreement, however, jeopardizes this increase and future funding our state may receive to support crime victim services. In fact, the current budget deal would not only significantly roll back that increase, it would actually allow more Crime Victims Fund money to go to federal spending increases than it would to crime victims.
Not only does this compromise the integrity of the fund’s original intention and create a dangerous precedent for future misuse, it is completely at odds with recent federal legislation and awareness campaigns. Those include the White House’s efforts to combat sexual assault on college campuses through the “It’s on Us” campaign; reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which was expanded to protect LGBTQ survivors of violence and victims in tribal communities; and new legislation to protect victims of human trafficking, particularly juvenile sex-trafficking victims.
While billions of dollars have been held by the Justice Department, victim advocates have been and continue to struggle to serve the current number of crime victims.
While all of these federal efforts are laudable, expansion of services comes with a cost and we implore Congress to hold true to the original intention of the Crime Victims Fund.
Nancy Lewis is executive director of the Colorado Organization for Victim Assistance.
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