This week, the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs cancelled numerous grants that serve survivors of crime without notice. These programs are essential to ensuring victims of trafficking, domestic violence, sexual assault, elder abuse, and hate crimes can access lifesaving services and seek relief. Federal funding for these programs serves as the backbone of our victim services infrastructure. Without it, most victim service providers will be forced to close, and survivors will lose access to the services they desperately need.
In response to concerns about the cancellation of these grants, the US Attorney General committed to ensuring services for victims are not impacted by cancellations. We appreciate the Attorney General’s stated commitment to protecting services. However, it seems that at least 30 grants funding direct services have been cut. These include services such as emergency housing assistance, crisis crime victim hotlines, community-based interventions, food assistance, and medical and mental health services.
By cutting access to these critical services, the US Department of Justice is threatening the lives of survivors, restricting services that allow them to escape and seek safety, and putting them out onto the streets. As our Executive Director told members of Congress, “If we allow our providers to close their doors, to go dark, we are inviting traffickers to walk in the door, to hold survivors captive and we are telling survivors that we no longer care about your safety, we no longer care about your security and we do not care whether or not you are able to ever escape your abuse and exploitation. We just can’t let that happen.” We stand by our statement, cutting these direct services grants without warning puts victims and survivors in more danger, and reneges on the United States’ commitments to protecting them.
We urge the Attorney General to review the programs cut by the Department of Justice this week and restore all victim services programs. Any cuts to any forms of victim services programs will prevent survivors of trafficking, domestic violence, sexual assault, hate, and abuse from coming forward. Defunding programs does nothing to protect survivors, instead, it sends a message to abusers and traffickers that they can abuse with impunity and to victims that they do not matter.