Services Provided to Victims of Domestic Violence, Sexual
Assault, Dating Violence, and Stalking (19-JUL-07, GAO-07-846R).
Historically, domestic violence, sexual assaults, and stalking
incidents have often been ignored by society and treated as
private family matters. However, in 1984, Congress passed and the
President signed the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act
(FVPSA) to, among other things, help prevent domestic violence
and provide shelter and related assistance for victims. Grants
funded under the act are administered by the Department of Health
and Human Services' (HHS) Administration for Children and
Families and are available to states, Indian tribal governments
and organizations, state domestic violence coalitions, and public
and private nonprofit entities. In response to continued concerns
about domestic violence as well as sexual assault and stalking
incidents, Congress passed and the President signed the Violence
Against Women Act (VAWA) in 1994. VAWA created new federal
criminal laws and established additional grant programs within
HHS and the Department of Justice (DOJ) for state, local, and
Indian tribal governments and nonprofit organizations. These
grant programs have various purposes, such as providing funding
for direct services including emergency shelter, counseling, and
legal services for victims of domestic violence, sexual assaults,
and stalking across all segments of the population. The Violence
Against Women and DOJ Reauthorization Act of 2005, enacted
January 5, 2006, requires us to conduct a study and report on
data indicating the prevalence of domestic violence, dating
violence, sexual assault, and stalking among men, women, youth,
and children; to survey DOJ, as well as any recipients of federal
funding, to identify what services are provided to victims of
these crimes; and to report on whether the services are made
available to men, women, youth, and children, as well as the
number, age, and gender of victims receiving each available
service. This report responds to the segment of the mandate
related to victim services. This report presents the results of
our efforts to address the following questions: (1) What types of
data have grant recipients collected and reported to HHS and DOJ
related to services provided under these grant programs to
victims, specifically data by type of service on the extent to
which men, women, youth, and children receive each service? and
(2) What challenges, if any, do federal departments report that
they and their grant recipients would face in collecting and
reporting information on the demographic characteristics of
victims receiving services by type of service, if they currently
do not do so?
-------------------------Indexing Terms-------------------------
REPORTNUM: GAO-07-846R
ACCNO: A72949
TITLE: Services Provided to Victims of Domestic Violence, Sexual
Assault, Dating Violence, and Stalking
DATE: 07/19/2007
SUBJECT: Child abuse
Crime victims
Data collection
Domestic violence
Federal aid programs
Grants to states
Reporting requirements
Sex crimes
Women
******************************************************************
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GAO-07-846R
* [1]July 19, 2007
July 19, 2007
Congressional Committees
Subject: Services Provided to Victims of Domestic Violence, Sexual
Assault, Dating Violence, and Stalking
Historically, domestic violence, sexual assaults, and stalking incidents
have often been ignored by society and treated as private family matters.
However, in 1984, Congress passed and the President signed the Family
Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA) to, among other things, help
prevent domestic violence and provide shelter and related assistance for
victims.1 Grants funded under the act are administered by the Department
of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Administration for Children and
Families and are available to states, Indian tribal governments and
organizations, state domestic violence coalitions, and public and private
nonprofit entities. In response to continued concerns about domestic
violence as well as sexual assault and stalking incidents, Congress passed
and the President signed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 1994.2
VAWA created new federal criminal laws and established additional grant
programs within HHS and the Department of Justice (DOJ) for state, local,
and Indian tribal governments and nonprofit organizations. These grant
programs have various purposes, such as providing funding for direct
services including emergency shelter, counseling, and legal services for
victims of domestic violence, sexual assaults, and stalking across all
segments of the population. Recipients of funds from these grant programs
include, among others, state agencies, tribes, shelters, rape crisis
centers, organizations that provide legal services, and hotlines. In 2000,
during the reauthorization of VAWA, language was added to the law to
provide greater emphasis on dating violence. The 2006 reauthorization of
VAWA expanded existing grant programs and added new programs addressing,
among other things, young victims, the housing and economic needs of
victims, and the health care system's response to domestic violence,
sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking.3 In addition to being
eligible to receive an array of services through VAWA-funded grant
programs, victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence,
and stalking are also eligible to receive services through grants awarded
in accordance with the Victims of Crime Act, which are administered by
DOJ's Office for Victims of Crime.4 In fiscal year 2007, Congress
appropriated $382.5 million for violence against women programs
administered by DOJ and an additional $125 million was available for
programs administered by HHS.5
1Pub. L. No. 98-457, tit. III, 98 Stat. 1749, 1771-80 (1984).
2Pub. L. No. 103-322 SS 40001-703, 108 Stat. 1796, 1902-55 (1994).
3Pub. L. No. 109-162, tits. I-VII, IX, 119 Stat. 2960, 2972-3053, 3077-84
(2006).
The Violence Against Women and DOJ Reauthorization Act of 2005, enacted
January 5, 2006, requires us to conduct a study and report on data
indicating the prevalence of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual
assault, and stalking among men, women, youth, and children;6 to survey
DOJ, as well as any recipients of federal funding, to identify what
services are provided to victims of these crimes;7 and to report on
whether the services are made available to men, women, youth, and
children, as well as the number, age, and gender of victims receiving each
available service.8 Congress requested this information, in part, to
assist in its program oversight and appropriations decisions. On November
13, 2006, we reported on the prevalence of these four categories of
crime.9 In that report, we stated that current national data collection
efforts address only certain subsets of these four categories of crime
among some segments of the population, and that the results of these
efforts cannot be combined and leveraged to determine nationwide
prevalence estimates because they use different definitions and vary in
scope. We recommended that DOJ and HHS take several actions to identify
and address information gaps, such as determining the prevalence of dating
violence among victims age 12 and older, and to the extent possible,
require the use of common definitions of domestic violence, sexual
assault, dating violence, and stalking when conducting or providing grants
for federal research. HHS and DOJ generally concurred with these
recommendations. Implementation of these recommendations will help provide
Congress and agency decision makers with more comprehensive information on
the prevalence of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and
stalking to assist them in making policy decisions on grants and other
issues associated with these four categories of crime.
4Victims of Crime Act of 1984, S 1404, 42 U.S.C. S 10603.
5An additional $565 million was available for compensation and assistance
for victims of crimes, such as domestic violence, through the Crime
Victims Fund, which was established by the Victims of Crime Act of 1984,
as amended. Fines collected from individuals convicted of offenses against
the United States and donations from private entities are credited to this
fund, but amounts deposited in excess of $625 million in any one fiscal
year generally are not available until the following fiscal year under a
provision included in each fiscal year's appropriations act.
6The 2006 reauthorization of VAWA defined the term "youth" as teen and
young adult victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault,
or stalking. It did not define "children." In addition, the definitions of
"youth" and "children" were not consistent across the grant programs we
reviewed. For example, one grant program defines "child victims" as age 12
and under, while another defines them as those under age 18 or as
otherwise defined by state law.
7Unless otherwise specified, the term "victims" refers to victims of
domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking.
8Pub. L. No. 109-162, S 119, 119 Stat. 2960, 2989-90 (2006).
9GAO, Prevalence of Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, Dating Violence,
and Stalking, [2]GAO-07-148R (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 13, 2006).
This report responds to the segment of the mandate related to victim
services. In addressing this segment of the mandate, we determined that
conducting our own survey of grant recipients to identify services
provided to victims and the demographic characteristics of victims
receiving each available service was not practical and feasible for three
primary reasons. First, although we reviewed electronic files provided by
HHS and DOJ that contained data on hundreds of grant recipients that
receive funds under each of these grant programs, we had difficulty
identifying the complete population of grant recipients from these files,
which was a necessary step to complete in selecting a survey sample. We
had difficulty because, for example, recipients could receive grants from
more than one program and could also receive grants from the same program
over multiple years. Thus, eliminating duplicate counts of grant
recipients was challenging and required significant resources. Second,
because some of these grants are provided to states and tribes, which in
turn distribute funding to other organizations that provide services, we
would have had to expend considerable effort and expense to contact and
obtain lists from all states and tribes to identify these additional
recipients. Third, as a result of discussions with grant recipients, we
could not be assured that any survey data we obtained would be consistent
and reliable enough for analysis of the specific information required,
i.e., the number, age, and gender of victims receiving each available
service.
As an alternative, and as agreed with your offices, we focused this report
on the reasons uniform and reliable demographic data by type of service
might not be available for services provided to victims by federal grant
recipients under VAWA, the Victims of Crime Act, and FVPSA. Thus, this
report presents the results of our efforts to address the following
questions:
1. What types of data have grant recipients collected and reported
to HHS and DOJ related to services provided under these grant
programs to victims, specifically data by type of service on the
extent to which men, women, youth, and children receive each
service?
2. What challenges, if any, do federal departments report that
they and their grant recipients would face in collecting and
reporting information on the demographic characteristics of
victims receiving services by type of service, if they currently
do not do so?
To answer the first question, we obtained information from and interviewed
officials at HHS's Administration for Children and Families (ACF) as well
as DOJ's Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) and Office on Violence Against
Women (OVW). This information included reports the agencies' grant
recipients are required to complete on a routine basis as well as reports
the agencies provide to Congress on victim services data. We also met with
state officials in Georgia, Maryland, and Texas who are responsible for
administering grants under VAWA, the Victims of Crime Act, and FVPSA. We
selected these states because they were geographically dispersed. We also
met with 20 grant recipients that provide services, such as emergency
shelter, legal advocacy, and rape crisis counseling, to victims within
their communities. During these visits, we interviewed grant recipients
about the types and extent of services provided to victims using federally
provided funds as well as the recipients' data collection and reporting
practices and reviewed available documentation related to these efforts.
In addition, we visited three other grant recipients that provide services
to victims throughout the United States, including the Rape Abuse and
Incest National Network, the National Center for Victims of Crime and its
Stalking Resource Center, and the National Domestic Violence Hotline. We
selected all of these grant recipients because they represented the
different types of recipients that provide victim services--police
departments, Indian tribes, legal entities, domestic violence shelters,
rape crisis centers, hotlines, county governments, and college campuses.
We also interviewed officials from various advocacy groups, such as
Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting and Men's Health Network,
as well as state coalitions against domestic violence in Georgia,
Maryland, and Texas and state coalitions against sexual assault in Georgia
and Texas. In addition, to obtain examples of how FVPSA grant recipients
were reporting victim services data to HHS, we reviewed a small sample of
eight grant recipient files maintained by HHS, containing reports on the
services provided to victims. At our request, ACF program staff selected
grant recipients that characterized the types of grant reports received.
Because we selected nongeneralizable samples of state officials, grant
recipients, grant recipient files, advocacy groups, and state coalitions,
the results from these interviews and file reviews cannot be used to make
inferences about all members of these populations. However, we determined
that the information obtained was sufficient to provide us with an
understanding of the types of data being collected by grant recipients and
reported to HHS and DOJ.
We also reviewed VAWA, the Victims of Crime Act, and FVPSA to determine
what services were authorized to be made available to men, women, youth,
and children. We focused on 11 federal grant programs that are authorized
under these three statutes. We selected these grant programs following
discussions with HHS and DOJ officials because the funds under these
programs could be used to provide direct services to victims during fiscal
year 2005. Table 1 provides a listing of these grant programs, and
additional details are provided in enclosure II.
Table 1: Grant Programs Included in GAO Review
Agency Grant program
Administration for Children and o Family Violence Prevention and
Families Services Act Grants
Office on Violence Against Women o STOP Violence Against Women Formula
Grants Program
o Legal Assistance for Victims Grant
Program
o STOP Violence Against Indian Women
Discretionary Grants Program
o Grants to Encourage Arrest Policies
and Enforcement of Protection Orders
o Rural Domestic Violence and Child
Victimization Enforcement Grants
o Grants to Reduce Violent Crimes
Against Women on Campus
o Transitional Housing Assistance
Grants Program
o Safe Havens: Supervised Visitation
and Safe Exchange Grant Program
Office for Victims of Crime o Victim Assistance Formula Grants
o Discretionary Grants
Source: GAO review of federal grant programs authorized under VAWA, the
Victims of Crime Act, and the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act.
To obtain information on the challenges HHS and DOJ report that they and
their grant recipients would face in collecting and reporting information
on the demographic characteristics of victims receiving services by type
of service, we met with agency officials responsible for administering the
11 grant programs we reviewed to obtain their perspectives on this issue.
We conducted our work from May 2006 through June 2007 in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards.
Results in Brief
Recipients of the 11 grant programs we reviewed currently collect and
report data to the respective agencies on the types of services they
provide, such as counseling, the total number of victims served, and in
some cases, demographic information, such as the age of victims; however,
data are not available on the extent to which men, women, youth, and
children receive each type of service for all services. This situation
occurs primarily because the statutes governing these programs do not
require the collection of such data. However, VAWA, the Victims of Crime
Act, and FVPSA authorize that a range of services can be provided to
victims, and we determined that services were generally provided to men,
women, youth, and children. The agencies administering these 11 grant
programs collect some demographic data for certain services, such as
emergency shelter under FVPSA and supervised visitation and exchange under
VAWA. However, even if demographic data were available by type of service
for all services, such data might not be uniform and reliable because (1)
the authorizing statutes and resulting reporting requirements for the 11
grant programs differ; (2) ACF has not developed a standard form for its
grant recipients to use in collecting and reporting data, and its grant
recipients have not always collected and reported data for consistent time
periods;10 (3) grant recipient officials assigned to manage FVPSA programs
have experienced high turnover resulting in a loss of program knowledge;
and (4) recipients of grants administered by all three agencies use
varying data collection practices--for example, some recipients request
victims to self-report data on the victim's race, whereas other recipients
rely on visual observation of the victim to obtain these data. HHS has
efforts under way to improve the uniformity and reliability of data
collection efforts, but does not anticipate full implementation of these
efforts until fiscal year 2010. However, these efforts are not intended to
collect information on the extent to which men, women, youth, and children
receive each type of service or on other demographic characteristics of
victims receiving services by type of service. Thus, even when these
efforts are fully implemented, such data will still not exist.
HHS and DOJ reported that they would face significant challenges in
collecting and reporting data on the demographic characteristics of
victims receiving services by type of service for all services funded by
the 11 grant programs included in our review because of concerns about
victims' confidentiality and safety, resource constraints, overburdening
recipients, and technological issues. For example, according to ACF, OVC,
and OVW officials, requiring grant recipients to collect this level of
detail may inadvertently disclose a victim's identity, thus jeopardizing
the victim's safety. ACF officials also said that some of their grant
recipients do not have the resources to devote to these data collection
efforts, since their primary focus is on service delivery. In addition,
ACF officials said that being too prescriptive in requiring demographic
data could overburden some grant recipients that may report data to
multiple funding entities, such as federal, state, and local entities and
private foundations. Furthermore, all three agencies reported that some
grant recipients do not have sophisticated data collection systems in
place to allow them to collect additional information.
We are not recommending that federal departments require their grant
recipients to collect and report additional data on the demographic
characteristics of victims receiving services by type of service because
of the potential costs and difficulties associated with addressing the
challenges HHS and DOJ officials identified, relative to the benefits that
would be derived.
In commenting on a draft of this report, HHS generally concurred with the
information presented in this report, as reflected in enclosure III. DOJ's
OVW made three overall comments regarding the presentation of this report.
First, OVW expressed concern that the report did not give the agency
credit for the victim services data it collects. This report acknowledges
the extensive data collected by OVW, but we nevertheless clarified the
report to emphasize that our focus is on whether grant recipients collect
and report victim services data specifically by type of service provided
to men, women, youth, and children. Second, OVW stated that this report
did not include a comprehensive description of the systems it has
instituted to improve the quality of its grant recipient data. We added
information regarding the systems and measures OVW told us that it has in
place on pages 9, 11, and 12, which we believe is sufficient to meet the
objectives of this report. Third, OVW was concerned that the report does
not permit the reader to associate the information presented in the report
with the agency responsible for the actions being discussed. Where
appropriate, we modified the report to more clearly link the data issues
we identified to the specific agencies that were involved. OVW's comments
are presented in enclosure IV.
References
Visible links
2. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-148R
*** End of document. ***