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Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).
Abstract
This report presents the Urban Institute's and the San Diego Association of Government's national evaluation of victims' compensation and assistance programs funded in part with federal Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) funds. This study was sponsored by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) with funds from the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC). The purpose of the study was to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of victim compensation and VOCA assistance programs at helping to deliver a seamless web of support to assist victims in their struggle to recover from the financial, emotional, physical, and psychological effects of criminal victimization. We approached this task through telephone surveys, site visit interviews, and focus groups with state administrators; members of oversight bodies; victim advocacy groups; VOCA-funded local service providers; victims who claimed compensation; and victims who accessed VOCA-funded direct service programs.
From 1986 to 2002, OVC has disbursed to state compensation and assistance programs over $3.7 billion in collections from federal offenders into the Crime Victims Fund (CVF). These funds have supported direct payments to victims, survivors, and providers for crime-related expenses (compensation), as well as thousands of community-based direct service providers who assist victims of a broad range of crimes with a variety of needs (assistance).
We found that many compensation programs have enhanced their client-service orientation in recent years, developing innovations to improve policies and case processing and outcomes for victim claimants. We recommend that this trend be continued through ongoing expansion of services, which should be feasible with recently increased federal allocations as long as state budget crises and other recent trends do not negatively impact program budgets. Programs should continue to develop administrative activities, such as needs assessment, strategic planning, coordination, and automation, to enhance client services. Outreach to underserved and unserved populations through direct service providers can be very useful for cultivating eligible claims and assisting in claims processing. Streamlined procedures to improve case processing should be continued. Although most claims are approved, methods for explaining denials and appeals options when a claim is denied may need improvement.
State programs administering VOCA assistance funds and community-level direct service providers have been functioning well under difficult funding circumstances. Program clients who participated in our survey reported that VOCA-funded services met many of their needs and were very satisfactory. It should be useful for future efforts to focus on making funds available for victim services while providing stability in year-to-year allocations; providing additional support for state administrators to expand their administrative activities; allowing subgrantees to access VOCA funds for critical administrative activities such as coordination efforts; addressing direct service programs' operational challenges, such as staff burnout, limits on usefulness of volunteers, and burdensome reporting requirements; and expanding direct services to serve unserved and underserved victims, and to address victims' unmet needs, including needs for justice system advocacy, needs assessments and service referrals, and financial counseling.
Coordination between compensation and VOCA assistance programs, and among VOCA and other victim service funding streams, is critical to ensure efficient program operations and effective services to victims. Coordination can occur through such means as cross-training of compensation and assistance staff and provision of referral materials and other resources, and collaborative involvement in other agencies' decision-making processes.
Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).
The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.
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