The California agency that serves as a last resort for crime survivors and families of crime victims in need of financial support gave out nearly $6m less in the first year of the pandemic than it did in the year before, an analysis of the agency’s annual reports reveals, with compensation declining for all major types of crime apart from homicides.
The rise in homicide compensations reflects the stark uptick in gun violence during the pandemic, a rise whose impact has been most acutely felt by Black and Latino Americans. But the decline in overall payments renews questions about gaps in the program that advocates say make it difficult for those in need to collect compensation.
California’s victim compensation board (CalVCB) paid out more than $52m between 1 July 2020 and 30 June 2021 to crime victims in the state, according to the agency’s annual reports. The vast majority of the money allotted, over $40m, was paid out to victims of assault, homicide and child abuse.
Payments to family members of murder victims rose by $2m compared with the year before, data shows. But compensation to victims of other types of crimes declined across the board.
The program saw a sharp decline in applications for compensation,data indicates, with 40,600 claims submitted, 10,000 fewer than the year before. The board also denied 900 more applications in 2020 than 2019, according to CalVCB’s statistics.
Heather Jones, a representative for the board, pointed to the pandemic hampering their outreach efforts as the reason behind the drop in applications in a statement to the Guardian.
But even before the pandemic, officials and advocates argued CalVCB was in need of reform. A recent memo by California’s state committee on revision of the penal code, a state group formed in 2020 to comb through California’s legal system and recommend changes that would improve equity and efficiency, highlighted some of the longstanding shortcomings of the program.
California created its victim compensation program in 1965, the first state to do so in the US. The program is mainly funded by restitution – money someone is ordered to pay after being convicted of a crime – and is used to help victims pay for funerals, medical bills and income loss if they take time off work. A reimbursement is only granted once someone exhausts payments from sources like workers’ compensation benefits or a civil lawsuit settlement. If someone proves that they don’t have any insurance or way to pay for a funeral or hospital stay, they may qualify for an upfront emergency payment.
But among the requirements to receive compensation is cooperation with police, a non-starter for some families living in communities that are most affected by both gun violence and over-policing and mass incarceration.
Families of victims also can’t claim compensation if the victim, according to police, was involved in the crime or had gang ties.
Advocates argue that such conditions make claims over-dependent on police officers’ account of an incident. And while applicants can appeal a denial, they have to come up with their own evidence that can prove their cooperation with police and that their loved one was not responsible for their own slaying.
In Alameda county, where Oakland is located, a 2020 grand jury investigation found that Black applicants were more than twice as likely to be denied for non-cooperation than white victims.
Red tape and lack of outreach not only puts an additional strain on grieving families, it can also keep the cycle of violence going, said Jasmine Hardison, coordinator of the Khadafy Washington Project, a homicide response program through Oakland’s Youth Alive!, a non-profit violence prevention and youth development organization.
Support funds can make a massive difference in the lives of victims and their families, Hardison said.
“People who are on the lower side of the socioeconomic scale have to rely on these resources to pay for hospital expenses,” she said. “Often we find that people don’t have life insurance, they’re in subsidized housing and they may be working full time, but they’re still falling below the poverty line. Finances can add another traumatic layer to the scenario,” she explained.
In 2021, the average cost of a funeral in the US was more than $7,800, about $500 higher than it was five years ago, according to the National Funeral Directors Association. And if the person survives their gunshot wounds, they and their families have to shoulder potentially tens of thousands of dollars in surgeries, physical therapy and home renovations if someone’s mobility is impaired by their injuries.
At the same time, the pandemic has exacerbated unemployment and housing insecurity, factors that drive gun violence among lower-income Black and Latino residents and add layers of stress on to already fragile communities. By the time the state’s 2020 fiscal year began in July, the loss of schools, jobs and youth centers was being felt by lower income Black and Latino residents and reflected in a gradual increase in killings that would last through 2021 in cities like Oakland and Los Angeles.
Hardison’s own son, 21-year-old David McDaniel, was shot and killed in 2016. Through support from the Khadafy Washington Project she was able to get victim compensation and long term services to help her deal with the trauma, support she said was vital since she was unable to work for two years after her son was killed. She took up her new role in late 2020, collecting victims’ belongings from police, picking out caskets and walking families through the victim compensation process.
About half the people she meets aren’t aware of the state’s victim’s compensation, Hardison said, and those who do know before meeting her find out from neighbors who have also been affected by violence.
“More hurt people will hurt people,” Hardison said about the decline in payouts. “There’s still this stigma about who is and isn’t a victim, and families have to suffer because of that,” she said.
