The VOCA Fix to Sustain the Crime Victims Fund Act of 2021 was introduced to the US House and Senate with bipartisan co-sponsors. The bill has strong bipartisan support as well as the support of the wider stakeholder and advocacy community. When the bill is introduced and comes to the attention of staffers across all offices, staff may want to know how declining VOCA awards are impacting their state. If you are able, we encourage you, or your agency, to reach out to your Congressional delegation. In addition, we encourage you to make your funded programs, state coalitions, and any other key partners aware of this opportunity to educate lawmakers about the need for sustainable VOCA funding in the years ahead. In anticipation of this outreach, we wanted you to have the handouts the wider coalition is using on the Hill.
Please visit the below links to access copies of these handouts, which include a letter signed by over 1,600 national, state, and local stakeholder organizations about the need to stabilize the Fund, a letter signed by all 56 state and territorial Attorneys General, a two-page Fact Sheet about the bill, VOCA state by state fact sheets created for each individual state and territory to share with its Congressional delegation, and the VOCA Fix Toolkit with shareable educational materials and sample email, press release and phone call script.
- Letter in support of VOCA bill signed by more than 1,680 national, regional, state, tribal, and local organizations, and government agencies.
- Letter in support of some of the provisions in the VOCA bill from the 56 state and territorial Attorneys General.
- VOCA Fix Fact Sheet
- State-by-state fact sheets- https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Fze8BX7RUqQ-LZ5VVEIiTirKQ2tYR-7T
- VOCA Fix Toolkit
As a reminder, the bill would:
- direct federal criminal settlements from non-prosecution and deferred prosecution agreements, currently deposited into the General Treasury, into the Fund. This change could add $4-$7 billion to the Fund over the next few years, stabilizing not only VOCA-funded programs, but the other justice assistance grant programs that rely on the Fund to support the entire DOJ appropriations bill;
- increase the percentage that state compensation programs may be reimbursed from 60 percent to 75 percent;
- provide the Attorney General the ability to issue no cost extensions on VOCA awards;
- give states the ability to waive the local match for VOCA assistance grants for the duration of the pandemic;
- provide additional flexibility for compensation programs to provide support for victims even if they do not interact with law enforcement prior to requesting assistance; and
- removing the restitution recovery penalty from annual state compensation certification forms.
Our working group includes the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA), the National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators (NAVAA), the National Association of Crime Victim Compensation Boards (NACVCB), the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) and numerous other stakeholder and advocacy organizations.