In a House Judiciary Committee hearing this afternoon, DOJ officials and expert witnesses told members of the subcommittee on crime, terrorism and Homeland Security to put more money towards state and federal measures to benefit victims of crimes.
The hearing was held to reexamine the Crime Victims’ Rights Act of 2004, designed to ensure victims of crimes are protected from threats, notified of the planned release of a perpetrator, and given the right to testify at parole hearings.
Representatives from the Department of Justice and the Government Accountability Office acknowledged it needed more funding, as did Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), the subcommittee ranking member. ”Victims are people. They are American people whose lives have been shattered,” Poe said. He called the act’s funding “appallingly low, embarrassingly low.”
Subcommittee chairman Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) asked acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs Mary Lou Leary how much more money she thought the DOJ would need for CVRA’s programs. “We can work with you on that,” Leary replied.
The 2004 bill authorized $46.3 million over five years to crime victim programs. Grants to state, tribal and local prosecutors’ offices were also created to enforce victims’ rights. However, according to this Government Accountability Office report, it’s unclear how much of that money was actually appropriated. Over the years, Congress made “lump sum” appropriations under the CVRA authority to a variety of different victim assistance programs, the GAO said.
Lewis & Clark Law Professor Doug Beloof said the “experiment” would cease to function without a more solid financial footing. ”This is perhaps the most critical problem,” Beloof said. Without funding, “victims will have no champions.”
National Center for Victims of Crime Public Policy Director Susan Howley said that in addition to increasing the program’s funding, “the process through which aggrieved crime victims seek redress should also be more user-friendly.”
To that point, Eileen Larence, Director of the GAO’s Homeland Security and Justice branch, which produced a study of the 2004 law, said: “While we tried, we could not determine just how much the department should appropriate to implement the act.”
More funding would mean more staff members in the DOJ’s programming to help more victims, Larence said, which would help victims understand their rights better.
Leary said millions of dollars are already flowing to alternative programs similar to the CVRA. That funding includes $4 million between fiscal year 2006 and 2009 to the National Crime Victim Law Institute for their Crime Victims’ Rights Enforcement Project,and $39 million to 38 states and Puerto Rico for a program to help states better reach out to victims of crime.
“Within OJP,” Leary said, “our Office for Victims of Crime provides resources and leadership to support key services for crime victims.”
