PRESS RELEASE

Department of Justice Awards $45 Million to Improve Services for Crime Victims

      WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime, a component of the Office of Justice Programs, today announced discretionary grant awards in the amount of $45 million to enhance services for victims of crime across the United States. The grants will fund training, services and resources that will create and improve the response to all crime victims, including victims in historically marginalized communities.

      OVC Director Kristina Rose attended an event today in Buffalo, NY, during which the Erie County Medical Center announced that they are a recipient of a grant awarded as part of the OVC Advancing Hospital-Based Victims Services program.

      “Too many Americans suffer the trauma of criminal victimization and then experience a system that is sometimes ill-equipped to properly support them,” said OJP Deputy Assistant Attorney General Maureen Henneberg. “The Office of Justice Programs is committed to providing services and assistance to every victim so that they have a voice in our justice system and a pathway for healing.”

      The grant awards will improve and expand victim services to underserved populations, including victims in majority Black and brown communities, transgender victims, older victims of abuse and exploitation, and children and youth affected by America’s substance use crisis. Funding will also support enhanced technology and crisis hotline services, programs to bring medical and forensic support to sexual assault victims, responses to victims in urgent care settings and legal fellows around the country to provide civil legal services to victims in underserved and historically marginalized communities.

      “Every victim takes a different path,” said Kristina Rose, Director of OJP’s Office for Victims of Crime. “These awards reflect the unqualified commitment of the Office for Victims of Crime to giving every victim a voice and meeting every survivor where they are.”

      Below is a list of programs designed to enhance services for victims of crime. Descriptions of individual awards can be found by clinking on the links.

• OVC is awarding $1.75 million under the Safety Support and Services for Survivors of Sexual Abuse in Youth Detention to support the development and enhancement of partnerships between juvenile detention centers or jails and community-based victim service providers, with the goal of increasing access to outside support services for incarcerated juvenile survivors of sexual abuse.

• OVC is awarding nearly $3 million under the Advancing the Use of Technology to Assist Victims of Crime program to provide funding to organizations that demonstrate innovative strategies to create, expand or enhance the use of technology to interact directly with crime victims, and improve both the quality of services and the accessibility and responsiveness of victim service organizations.

• OVC is awarding nearly $1.5 million under the Advancing Hospital-Based Victim Services program to support evidence-based models, practices and policies that improve partnerships between the victim services field and hospitals and other medical facilities to increase support and access to assistance for crime victims, improve victim outcomes and reduce chances for further victimization.

• OVC is awarding nearly $750,000 under the Responding to Transgender Victims of Crime program to develop a toolkit for serving transgender crime victims, especially for transgender women and girls of color, expanding upon the previously released OVC guide, Responding to Transgender Victims of Sexual Assault.

• OVC is awarding $5 million under the Bridging Inequities - Legal Services and Victims' Rights Enforcement for Underserved Communities program to increase access to legal assistance for victims of crime in underserved communities by building and training a cadre of 20 legal fellows to be hosted by organizations across the nation and located in underserved and historically marginalized communities.

• OVC is awarding $2 million under the Protecting Futures: Building Capacity to Serve Children and Youth Impacted by America's Drug Crisis program to support direct services to children and youth who are crime victims impacted by the nation’s drug crisis and also provide technical assistance to subawardees.

• OVC is awarding $3.75 million under the Transforming America's Response to Older Victims: Developing and Supporting Statewide Elder Justice Coalitions and Training and Technical Assistance Program to develop or expand statewide elder justice coalitions.

• OVC is awarding $6 million under the Building Capacity of National Crisis Hotlines program to enhance or expand the capacity of national victim service hotlines to provide crisis intervention support services using trauma-informed approaches that protect the safety and confidentiality of victims.

• OVC is awarding nearly $2.7 million under the Emergency and Transitional Pet Shelter and Housing Assistance Grant Program to provide funding for shelter and transitional housing and other assistance to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault or stalking and their pets.

• OVC is awarding nearly $3.5 million under the Expanding Access to Sexual Assault Forensic Examinations program to establish or expand sexual assault examination programs, including sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) and sexual assault forensic examiner (SAFE) programs that focus on increasing the number and availability of SANEs/SAFEs, expanding access to sexual assault forensic examinations and improving the quality of post-sexual assault care using a hospital-based or community-based approach.

• OVC is awarding nearly $450,000 under the Enhancing Law Enforcement Response to Victims Fellowship program to promote the Enhancing Law Enforcement Response to Victims (ELERV) strategy, provide training and technical assistance to agencies interested in ELERV, and engage with law enforcement agencies interested in improving agencywide victim response and creating in-house, law enforcement-based victim services.

• OVC is awarding $3.75 million under the Law Enforcement-Based Victim Services Technical Assistance Program to fund a national-level technical assistance project to develop, enhance and sustain direct victim service programs within law enforcement-based systems to serve the needs and rights of all crime victims.

• OVC is awarding $2.25 million under the Field-Generated Solicitation: Increasing Options and Expanding Access for Victims of Crime program to develop or enhance promising practices, models and programs that offer innovative solutions aimed at building the capacity of service providers to increase the service options and/or expand access points for victims of crime in underrepresented communities.

• OVC is awarding nearly $300,000 under the Developing Greater Understanding of the Needs of and Resources for Victims of Criminal Justice System-Related Harm program to better understand the service needs of persons harmed by a criminal justice system error or failure, develop best practices to identify these victims, determine whether services currently exist that can meet the needs of this victim population and offer recommendations for appropriate service delivery, resources, partnerships and tools.

• OVC is awarding nearly $5 million under the Enhancing Access to Victim Services program to improve and expand the availability of accessible victim-centered, trauma-informed services for crime victims who are disabled, Deaf, hard-of-hearing, Limited English Proficient, blind and/or visually impaired; fund accessible direct services for these victims; provide dedicated training and technical assistance to assist victim-serving organizations with the development and implementation of accessibility plans; and identify innovative approaches to serving these victims.

• OVC is awarding nearly $1.5 million under the Measuring the Impact of Victim Services: Implementation, Management, and Sustainment of the iMPRoVE Project to provide an assessment survey tool for victim service providers to be able to measure outcomes and assess the effectiveness and quality of services provided to their clients.

• OVC is awarding $2 million under the Building State Technology Capacity program to enhance states’ use of technology for the purpose of providing improved services to crime victims.

• OVC is awarding $400,000 under the National Crime Victims' Rights Week Resource Guide (2023) program to support the development of a comprehensive guide for the crime victims’ advocacy field to increase public awareness of crime victim issues nationwide during National Crime Victims’ Rights Week in April 2023, and throughout the year, and begin preparations for 2024.

      The awards announced above are being made as part of the regular end-of-fiscal year cycle. More information about these and other OJP awards can be found on the OJP Grant Awards Page.

      The Office of Justice Programs provides federal leadership, grants, training, technical assistance and other resources to improve the nation’s capacity to prevent and reduce crime, advance racial equity in the administration of justice, assist victims and strengthen the criminal and juvenile justice systems. More information about OJP and its components can be found at www.ojp.gov.

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OFFICE:  ovc.ojp.gov
CONTACT:  Meredith Tibbetts at 202-307-9038 or meredith.tibbetts@usdoj.gov