The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“VOCA FIX TO SUSTAIN THE CRIME VICTIMS FUND ACT OF 2021” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E265 on March 17.
The Department is one of the oldest in the US, focused primarily on law enforcement and the federal prison system. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, detailed wasteful expenses such as $16 muffins at conferences and board meetings.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
VOCA FIX TO SUSTAIN THE CRIME VICTIMS FUND ACT OF 2021
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speech of
HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE
of texas
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1652, or the ``VOCA Fix Act of 2021,'' a critical piece of legislation designed to curtail and prevent future cuts to an already diminished federal victim service grants program.
This legislation must pass, because VOCA grants provide compensation to victims of crime at critical moments of desperate need.
VOCA funds could help compensate the only surviving victim of Robert Lee Haskell who, driven by vengeance, fatally shot six members of his exwife's family in Texas, including four children.
The survivor of Haskell's rampage, a girl of only fifteen, was shot in the head and only survived by playing dead.
VOCA funds could help compensate the wife and two children of a man killed in a home intrusion in Harris County, Texas, after an intruder entered the family's home, ordered the wife and children to lock themselves into a room, and then proceeded to shoot their husband and father.
VOCA funds could help compensate a woman who was abducted in Houston and forced to drive to an ATM at gunpoint, where she withdrew cash to give to her abductors.
VOCA funds could help compensate innumerable victims and survivors of federal crimes, but only if we pass this legislation.
VOCA grants have been vital in their support of traditional victim service providers across the nation, particularly for those organizations serving victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse, trafficking, and drunk driving.
VOCA grants also fund victim compensation, which helps survivors pay medical bills, missed wages, and in the most severe cases, funeral costs.
However, the ``federal grants used to support victim services through VOCA have decreased significantly over the past several years.
Further drastic cuts to VOCA funding are expected, as the non-
taxpayerfunded pool from which these grants originate, the Crime Victims Fund, is running dry.
The Crime Victims Fund serves as an example of true justice, because the money used to support victims comes not from taxpayer dollars but rather from the criminal fines and penalties paid by federally convicted offenders.
The Crime Victims Fund has shrunk rapidly in recent years and continues to decline, because rather than prosecuting cases, the Department of Justice increasingly settles cases through deferred prosecution and non-prosecution agreements, and the monetary penalties associated with these agreements are deposited into the Treasury rather than the Crime Victims Fund.
These agreements deny funding to victim services, which is contrary to the spirit of VOCA: monetary penalties from crimes should go to serve victims of crimes.
The crimes from which these penalties are derived are the same, whether they are prosecuted or settled, and the funding should be going to serve victims.
The VOCA Fix Act of 2021 fixes this by ensuring that monetary penalties associated with deferred and non-prosecution agreements go into the Crime Victims Fund instead of into the Treasury.
This simple fix will prevent future funding cuts that jeopardize programs' abilities to serve their communities and will help address the many growing and unmet needs of victims and survivors, including survivors of domestic violence.
This legislation not only recognizes that it is the victims of crime that bear the brunt of the drastic cuts being made, but also that we must protect those victims that have the courage to come forward and work together with the authorities to bring justice to their offenders.
Victims who cooperate with authorities often fear for their own safety and face pain at revisited trauma, and this legislation recognizes that rather than putting victims in further danger, we create for them a safe environment--both physically and emotionally.
Victims may be intimidated by law enforcement or other government agencies, but if we want victims to fully and freely cooperate with the authorities, we must ensure that victims feel protected and that there is no risk of becoming retraumatized.
We must also make sure that if victims cooperate with authorities, then measures to ensure the safety of victims will be provided in our government agencies working in tandem with victim service providers.
Tomorrow, the House will vote on H.R. 1620, which will reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 1994.
We are doing so because we recognize the urgency and dire need faced by the victims and survivors throughout this country during a significant moment of ongoing domestic violence caused by this pandemic and experienced by both women and men.
Although local victim services agencies are there to help, they are facing record numbers of clients as well as the economic consequences of the pandemic.
Without the VOCA Fix Act of 2021, survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault will inevitably lose access to victim support services, leaving victims and survivors without options for safety and vulnerable to further victimization.
Madam Speaker, the time is now to deliver access to the services victims and survivors so desperately need during a critical moment when the need for victim assistance has skyrocketed and programs are being forced to cut lifesaving services for victims.
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