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By Jeremy Levine

Introduction

In the aftermath of crime, victims face considerable challenges. Survivors of gun violence rack up hospital bills. Rape victims seek mental health counseling and relocate to safer environments. Families of murdered loved ones plan funerals while trying to manage their grief. If there is a common thread across these examples it is that victimization is costly. Crime victim compensation is a public benefit intended to cover these and other financial costs associated with crime. Victim compensation benefits can be used to cover medical bills, counseling, relocation, funerals, crime scene cleanup, and other related expenses after insurance and welfare benefits are accounted for. Crime victim compensation programs are managed by states with up to 75% of program costs paid for by a federal subsidy.

Yet only some victims are eligible for compensation. In general, eligible victims must suffer bodily harm and have documented expenses directly related to their injuries. However, states also impose several additional restrictions on eligibility. One category of restrictions is administrative paperwork burdens: Victims must report crimes to police and file claims within state-mandated deadlines, present verifiable bills of expenses, and properly complete administrative paperwork. The second category of restrictions includes limitations related to “innocence:” States require eligible victims to cooperate with the police and will deny benefits if the police believe victims engaged in any misconduct — broadly defined — that may have contributed to their victimization. A few states take victims’ criminal records into account and will deny victims’ compensation claims if they have ever been convicted of a crime in the past. The emphasis on innocence brings the police (and any associated bias) directly into state officials’ decision-making processes.

In this brief, I illustrate the consequences of these eligibility restrictions for racial and gender inequality. Drawing on an analysis of compensation decisions from 18 states, I find Black and Indigenous applicants are the least likely to be compensated. A significant portion of this inequality is driven by the police criminalizing and distrusting victims of color. Moreover, survivors of gender-based violence are uniquely disadvantaged and less likely than victims of other crimes to be compensated. As governments consider legislative amendments and rule changes to victim compensation law, these results point to several avenues for reform.

Key Findings

• Crime victim compensation is a public benefit managed by states and subsidized by the federal government. It can cover innocent crime victims’ medical bills, mental health counseling, lost wages, funeral costs, and other expenses related to injuries caused by crime.
• States impose several eligibility restrictions to limit the benefit to “innocent” victims of crime. Innocence is by and large determined by whether police officers believe victims are cooperative or engaged in any misconduct in the lead up to the crime.
• As a result of these and other eligibility restrictions, Black and Indigenous victims are less likely to be compensated than victims from other social groups. For women, victims of sexual assault and domestic violence are among the least likely to be compensated.
• Lawmakers should reform eligibility criteria and remove racialized and gendered barriers to crime victim benefits.

Policy Recommendations

• Eliminate the cooperation with law enforcement and contributory misconduct eligibility restrictions. Both requirements are subjective and susceptible to implicit and explicit bias. States should follow the lead of Illinois and New York and substantially reduce or eliminate these restrictions. The federal government, through the Office for Victims of Crime, can incentivize these changes at the state level by implementing its proposed rule changes and tying state grants to loosening these restrictions.
• Rethink the use of the police to determine victim innocence. The basic structure of victim compensation law empowers police officers to decide whether victims are innocent, but the police are not a neutral institution. Policymakers should consider alternative procedures that assess victim eligibility independent of police perceptions. For example, states could treat referrals from social service providers – such as employees of rape crisis centers, trauma recovery centers, or domestic violence shelters – as sufficient evidence claimants were victims of crimes. Additionally, seeking medical care at a hospital or receiving assistance from a community violence intervention worker could satisfy any requirement that victims show evidence of harm. Other institutions ranging from medical professionals to social workers are well suited to verify victims’ statuses as victims. In the end, denying victims financial resources because the police do not perceive them as fully innocent or cooperative does little, if anything, to incentivize cooperation or prevent future crime. Instead, as this report shows, police involvement in victim compensation decisions produces significant inequality – and with it, a challenge to racial and gender justice.

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