Twenty Years Later: A National Study of Victim Compensation Programs

Stone granite official government building in city with American flag waving in front

Challenge

There is little current information on state victim compensation programs since a major study in 2003.

State victim compensation programs across the U.S. provide financial assistance to victims of crime to cover expenses associated with the financial, physical, and psychological burden of victimization. In 2018, these programs paid over $400 million to support victims and their families. Given the prevalence of victimization and the high costs associated with crime, state victim compensation programs are essential in helping meet the needs of victims in general, and specifically in racially marginalized, low-income communities. In 2003, the Urban Institute published National Evaluation of State Victims of Crime Act Assistance and Compensation Programs: Trends and Strategies for the Future, an NIJ-funded report on state victim compensation and assistance programs. Since then, little research has examined how different victim compensation program structures, models, funding streams, and policies influence how programs operate and distribute compensation.

Solution

NORC partnered on a follow-up study to look at state victim compensation programs’ structures, operations, challenges, and successes.

NORC and the Urban Institute partnered on a NIJ-funded study to update the findings from the 2003 report. Our study sought to answer five research questions:

How are victim compensation programs structured, operated, funded, and utilized today?
What key barriers and challenges do victim compensation programs face today?
How do victim compensation program directors, funders, service providers, and claimants measure “effectiveness” and “success”?
What are the characteristics, experiences, and perspectives of individual claimants who request victim compensation?
Looking at the next 20 years of victim compensation, what do program directors and stakeholders perceive as most critical to improving and/or sustaining the performance of victim compensation programs?

To answer these questions, NORC and Urban administered surveys with victim compensation program administrators in each state and partnered with Arizona, Delaware, New York, and West Virginia for a deep-dive assessment of their programs. In each of the states, we conducted interviews with victim compensation program stakeholders, collected victim compensation data, and administered surveys to individuals who filed for victim compensation.

Result

State victim compensation programs continue to provide critical support for victims of crime.

Three key findings include:

More than 50% of victim compensation programs indicated that claims for compensation have increased over the past three years. The most common reasons cited for the increase were more frequent and effective training with criminal justice workers, victim service providers, and other community providers on victim compensation programs; increases in crime rates; and changes in statutory eligibility requirements.
Victim compensation programs indicated that they felt as if certain types of crimes and groups of people, based on demographic or geographic characteristics, apply for compensation less frequently than others.
Most victim compensation programs reported experiencing hardships during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, as offices were forced to transition to remote work, trainings and outreach conducted by compensation programs were either paused or conducted remotely, limiting the number of victims compensation programs were able to reach. The pandemic also created staffing shortages that impacted work capacity.

The most frequent needs reported by victim compensation programs to sustain and continue to meet their goals over the next 20 years include more staff to better support their programs, improved data collection and case management systems, and increased federal and state funding.