NCJ Number
206477
Date Published
February 2004
Length
81 pages
Annotation
This report provides a summary of activities for fiscal year 2002-2003 for the Crime Victim Assistance Program and the Crime Victim Compensation Program under the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission.
Abstract
In 1986, the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission created two programs to distribute funds from the Crime Victim Compensation Assistance Fund: the Crime Victim Assistance Program and the Crime Victim Compensation Program. This report describes the activities of both of these programs during fiscal year 2002-2003. The Crime Victim Assistance Program provides grant funding to government agencies and private non-profit organizations to support delivery of direct services to crime victims. For the fiscal year 2002-2003 grant cycle 53 organizations submitted applications requesting a total of $2,028,132 in funding. During fiscal 2002-2003, the 46 Crime Victim Assistance Program grantees provided 306,883 victim services to 27,692 crime victims in Arizona with domestic violence accounting for nearly 25 percent of those assessing services. The Crime Victim Compensation Program assists innocent crime victims in Arizona with out-of-pocket expenses for crime-related medical treatment, mental health counseling, funerals, and wage loss. The program is a State program administered at the county level by the 15 county attorneys. Arizona is only one of two States that operate a decentralized program. Statewide, 1,903 victim compensation claims were submitted in fiscal year 2002-2003 with 1,538 approved for awards. Victims were awarded $2,669,655 in 2002-2003 for an average of $1,736 per claim with assault topping the list of crimes causing victims to access the program.