Victims

Model Standards Seek to Enhance Crime Victim Services

OVC's Achieving Excellence: Model Standards for Serving Victims & Survivors of Crime e-publication seeks to enhance victim service providers' competency and capacity to provide ethical, high-quality responses to crime victims. These model standards also seek to meet the demands facing the field today. The e-publication includes three sets of standards:

• The Program Standards recommend guidelines, policies, and...

The National Census of Victim Service Providers is the first-ever national data collection of programs responding to victims and survivors of crime and abuse. The recently released report, Victim Service Providers in the United States, 2017, provides the most comprehensive picture of the victim services field to date.

The census was conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics with support from OVC.

According to...

National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month

Every January, the nation commemorates National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. In his proclamation, the President states that "we remain relentless in our resolve to bring perpetrators to justice, to protect survivors and help them heal, and to prevent further victimization and destruction of innocent lives."

This year, OVC celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Trafficking...

OVC anticipates that it will upload the final VOCA formula victim assistance rule during the first week of July. It will become effective 30 days after publication in the Federal Register. In the interim, OVC is sending this communication to VOCA Administrators to again clarify what is allowable under the current guidelines for transitional housing and legal assistance.

Regarding legal assistance, victim assistance programs can...

In all states, some form of adult protective services (APS) exists to receive reports of elder abuse. Some states utilize a statewide hotline for receiving reports of elder abuse (intake), while other states maintain a system of local level intake. Intake is conducted, among other things, to determine whether victim services should be the only referral or whether a more system-delivered response is indicated (i.e...

A Copy of an Email Sent by Kathrina S. Peterson, OVC Acting Deputy Director, on December 17, 2019

Good Evening Administrators,

We are excited to share with you many updates from OVC. This email is long, but full of good nuggets of information for both Compensation and Assistance Administrators. Keep reading and don’t panic!

SARS Update & Clarification: We recognize that we issued conflicting...

The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) has released the FY 2020 VOCA Victim Compensation and Victim Assistance allocation tables:

OVC is accepting applications for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) Assistance and Compensation formula solicitations. Applications for both solicitations are due by Monday, June 1, 2020.

OVC FY 2020 VOCA Victim Assistance

All applicants must register in OJP’s Grants Management System...