VOCA Funding

Current Status/Action News:

FY 2013
The President is scheduled to release his proposed FY 2013 budget on Monday, February 13, 2012.

FY 2012
Congress has enacted the FY 2012 Commerce, Justice and Science (CJS) appropriations which set the VOCA cap at $705 million, the same level as the two previous years.  However, the bill also requires the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) to support its management and administrative (M&A) expenses (as well as training and technical assistance, research and statistics activities and other non-grant related expenses) with grant program funds, including the Crime Victims Fund.  It is unknown at this time how much that will reduce state VOCA victim assistance grants. (In its FY 2012 budget request, OJP asked for a total of $208.4 million for its M&A.) In addition to the total dollar amount of VOCA to be used for this purpose, of equal concern is that the total amount will be allocated among all OJP grant offices and programs on a fair and equitable basis.

Documents

(All documents in PDF format unless otherwise indcated in square brackets.)

FY 2010 Appropriations

[Top]

Media Coverage

[Top]

Background

  • The Crime Victim Fund helps more than 4 million victims of all types of crime every year.
  • The Fund comes from the collection of Federal criminal fines; not taxpayers.
  • Congress has repeatedly pledged that all amounts deposited into the Fund would remain available for victim services.

The Victims of Crime Act of 1984 is the Federal government's principle means of providing support for programs that serve victims of all types of crime. Each year, Federal criminal fines, forfeitures and special assessments are deposited into the Crime Victims Fund (the Fund). These offender generated revenues -- NOT TAXPAYER DOLLARS -- are used to support these programs:

  • Children’s Justice Act -- to improve the investigation and prosecution of child abuse cases;
  • U.S. Attorney’s victim/witness coordinators -- to provide assistance to victims involved in Federal criminal prosecutions by funding 170 FTE United States Attorney Office victim assistance coordinators;;
  • F.B.I. victim assistance specialists-- to help victims during Federal criminal investigations by funding 112 FTE victim assistance specialists;
  • Federal victim notification system -- to provide automated notification to victims of the status of Federal criminal investigations and prosecutions and the offender's status in the Federal prison system;
  • OVC discretionary grants -- to support national scope training and technical assistance and to provide services to victims of Federal crimes;
  • State compensation formula grants -- to supplement State funds used to reimburse victims of violent crimes for medical expenses, mental health counseling, lost wages, loss of support and funeral/burial costs;
  • State victim assistance formula grants -- to support direct victim assistance services -- such as counseling, emergency shelter, rape crisis centers, help in participating in the criminal justice system. Approximately 3.5 million - 4 million crime victims receive these services by more than 4,000 agencies annually;
  • Antiterrorism Emergency Reserve -- to replenish a special $50 milllion reserve to assist victims of domestic and international terrorism and mass violence. The needs for this reserve is demonstrated by Minnesota's request for supplemental compensation funding in response to the Red Lake, MN school shooting

Prior to FY 2000, all of the money deposited into the Crime Victims Fund from the collection of Federal criminal fines, forfeitures and assessments, was allocated the following fiscal year according to a formula in the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) statute. Because of wide fluctuations in the amount deposited, beginning in FY 2000, Congress began imposing a limitation or "cap" on the amount of Fund deposits that could be obligated the following year.

Fiscal Year
Prv. Yr. Deposits
Cap
  
Fiscal
Year
Prv. Yr. Deposits
Cap
2000
$985,185,354
$500,000,000
  
2007
649,631,046
625,000,000
2001
776,954,858
537,500,000
  
2008
1,017,977,475
590,000,000
2002
544,437,015
550,000,000
  
2009**
896,316,825
635,000,000
2003
519,466,480
600,000,000
  
2010
1,745,677,602
705,000,000
2004
361,341,967
621,312,500*
  
2011
2,362,337,940
705,000,000
2005
833,695,013
620,000,000*
  
2012
1,998,220,205
705,000,000
2006
668,268,054
625,000,000
        
* Includes rescissions.
** Does not include $100 million in Recovery Act funding

Congress said it was delaying use of the deposits above the cap in order "to protect against wide fluctuations in receipts into the Fund, and to ensure that a stable level of funding will remain available for these programs in future years." [Conference Report 106-479] Congress also amended the VOCA statute to reflect the preservation of all deposits for future VOCA programs.

The amounts remaining in the Fund are carried over from year to year to be used when Fund deposits are less than the next year's cap. Three times since caps were imposed -- in FYs 2002, 2003 and 2004 -- Congress has relied on this "rainy day reserve" because of insufficient deposits. However, thanks largely to a handful of very large cases, deposits into the Fund have escalated at unprecedented levels.  As a result, the balance in the Fund will continue to grow:

Fund Opening Balance (millions)
FY
    
FY
  
2000
485
  
2007
1,333
2001
1,300
  
2008
1,730
2002
1,330
  
2009
1,852
2003
1,311
  
2010
3,148
2004
1,080
  
2011
4,801
2005
1,261
  
2012
5,767
2006
1,307
      

This is important because the VOCA statute contains a rather complicated formula that determines how much each Under this formula, grants for state VOCA victim assistance programs  -- the grants that support thousands of direct victim services -- gets whatever's left over after the other VOCA-dependent programs are funded. As a result, unless the cap is high enough, state VOCA assistance grants are cut as new programs are added or other VOCA-dependent costs increase.

Despite tremendous growth in the Crime Victims Fund balance, lack of adequate VOCA funding means fewer crime victims have access to essential assistance services.

Fiscal Year
VOCA assistance funds*
No. VOCA Funded Agencies
No. Victims Served
2006
395.9
4,397
3,813,128
2007
370.6
4,201
4,116,648
2008
309.0
4,358
3,780,068
2009
363.8
4,020
3,526,736
Recovery Act
47.5
568
38,307
2010 412.1 3,730 3,609,421
2011 428.1    
* in millions

[Top]

Find Federal Officials 
Enter ZIP Code:

or Search by State

Find State Officials
Enter ZIP Code:

or Search by State

Contact The Media 
Enter ZIP Code:

or Search by State

Contact Congress

Call, email or fax your Congressional delegation and urge them to fully support crime victims by raising the VOCA cap. Find out how to contact your Senator and Representatives (often just by entering your zip code) by going to these web sites:

Connect to their offices through this toll-free number: 1-800-247-2971

For media inquiries about VOCA and the Crime Victims Fund: contact: NAVAA Executive Director Steve Derene at steve@navaa.org or call 608-233-2245.


[Previous Page] [Disclaimer] [Contact Us]
©NAVAA is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization whose mission is "to advance education, research, and public service to assure accessible quality services for crime victims nationwide, to strengthen exchange of information and communication among its members and to provide its members with training and technical assistance to effectively respond to the issues and challenges of supporting those services."