Federal Funds Strengthen
Response
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The STOP
(Services, Training, Officers, and Prosecutors) Violence Against
Women Formula Grants Program develops and strengthens the
justice system’s response to violence against women and
supports and enhances services for victims. Under the
reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, each state
and territory must allocate at least five percent of the
state’s STOP monies to courts-based programs or initiatives.
NCSC staff have
conducted several projects to evaluate the use of funds, provide
courts with comparative information, and recommend future
enhancements.
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VAWA Discretionary Funds: How are the states
spending the money?
Madelynn Herman, NCSC
knowledge management analysis, used the Court2Court and COSCA
listservs to survey the courts on STOP funds use. The information she
compiled in the summer of 2002 is available in the Family Violence
topic folder of CourTopics. The direct URL to “Violence Against
Women Act Court-Specific Funding: Listserv Survey Response” is www.ncsconline.org/WC/Publications/KIS_VAWAcourtfundingPub.pdf.
“There is quite a
bit of variety in how the states are using the VAWA court-specific
funding,” said Herman. Some examples include automated systems to
communicate protection order information from the courts to the state
highway patrol, staff positions to coordinate protection orders and
provide pre-trial help, expanded training, advocacy programs, and
consortia.
VAWA Funds for Courts: Results of a State Court
Administrators Survey
In June 2003, Brenda
Uekert, senior research associate and chair of NCSC’s Family
Violence Community of Practice, surveyed state court administrators.
Responses were received from 37 states, the District of Columbia,
Guam, and Northern Mariana Islands. Of the 40 respondents, 28
had a designated point person in the Administrative Office of the
Courts (AOC) on family violence issues.
The Distribution of Funds
The majority of state
court administrative offices indicated that they were receiving the
five percent set-aside from the STOP program. However, a significant
number of administrative offices noted that the courts were not
receiving all of the 5 percent set-aside (7 states or territories) or
were simply not sure (8 states or territories). Additionally, a
number of states noted that the competitive bidding process created
challenges in meeting the mandate, since few courts applied for STOP
funds.
Perceptions of the
effectiveness of the state’s current mechanism for distribution of
STOP grants were influenced by the role of the AOC in the
decision-making process. Approximately half of the respondents felt
that the state’s current mechanism was effective in meeting the
needs of the courts. Of the 40 respondents, 15 AOCs indicated that
they had no role in the identification of court needs and priorities
for the STOP program. Only 3 of those 15 respondents perceived
the state’s current mechanism for distribution as effective,
compared to 18 of the 25 respondents from states where the AOC had
some role in the distribution of STOP funds to courts.
STOP funds are most
often used for judicial and court staff training. Other training needs
included technology acquisition/data collection; courts involvement in
coordinated community responses; judicial resource guide development;
and specialized courts or dockets. In addition to the rankings by
specific choices, states indicated that STOP funds had been used to
develop video-conferencing between courts and shelters or family
centers, to conduct a legal needs study to determine groups of people
that may currently be underserved, to conduct a pilot study to test
the feasibility of electronic submission of Orders of Protection
forms, to automate the filing of protection orders over the Internet
on a pilot basis, and to support the interpretation and translation of
court forms and information into Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese and
Korean.
Promising Practices
Finally, respondents
were asked to identify STOP-funded projects in their states or
territories that appear to be most promising. The list includes:
Judicial training
programs (Alaska, California, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah,
Washington, West Virginia)
Training for support
staff (Hawaii, Oregon, Utah)
Automated protection
order registries (Arizona, Missouri, North Dakota)
Improvement of
services/advocacy to victims (District of Columbia, Maryland,
Massachusetts, South Carolina, South Dakota)
Assessment of
domestic violence court processes (Florida, Montana)
Coordinated community
responses (Georgia, Northern Mariana Islands, Wisconsin)
Development of
“benchbooks” or protocols (Michigan, New Hampshire, Washington,
Wyoming)
Hiring dedicated
court staff (Nevada, New Mexico)
Development of
specialized court (Texas)
For further details,
see http://www.ncsconline.org/WC/Publications/KIS_FamVioVAWASurveyPub.pdf
VAWA Funds Address Acute Local Needs for Data
Collection Tools and Communication Systems
Dawn Marie Rubio,
NCSC senior court management consultant, directed a project that was
one of several evaluations conducted for the National Institute of
Justice to assess STOP grant awards. Rubio’s team surveyed,
interviewed, and evaluated grantees that intended to improve data
collection and/or communication systems with the federal funds.
The evaluation found
that money was used by a large number of grantees to meet basic needs
at the local level for equipment needed to reduce violence against
women—computer hardware and software, fax machines, cell phones, and
cameras. In addition, grantees said that many systems for collecting,
analyzing, and sharing information among agencies would not have been
developed in the absence of STOP grant funding.
During
follow-up written surveys, respondents reported improved
decision-making, enhanced ability to provide services to victims, and
stronger linkages across agencies to provide a more coordinated
response. Over a third said that victim safety has been increased
through notification measures made possible by their projects.
Respondents
felt that STOP funding was critical to the development and
continuation of the data collection and communication systems. 43
percent of respondents reported either that permanent financial
support was in the agency’s budget or plans were in place to
permanently fund the system. Over half reported having no data or
communication system before they received STOP funds, and a third had
only a manual data collection system. These responses suggest that for
many, STOP funds have been the catalyst for securing institutional
support.
Several statewide and
some local projects achieved greater success in meeting the goals
outlined by VAWA through more coordinated efforts. For example,
Virginians Against Domestic Violence created a web-based statewide
data collection system that is accessible 24 hours a day/seven days
per week (www.vadata.org).
The system has been used to enhance operations and increase services
to survivors across the state. Delaware, which requires gun owners who
are subject to a protection order (PFA) to relinquish firearms,
automated printed notices from the court to registered gun owners when
the PFA is issued. A component of this system application monitors the
gun owner’s compliance with the relinquishment notice.
Accurate and reliable
data systems and competent and secure communication methods are
essential elements of a coordinated, coherent, and comprehensive
government and community system for reducing violence against women.
NCSC urged the Department of Justice to consider the following
recommendations in funding future projects:
- Create
an information clearinghouse for current and potential grantees
about funding to complement, supplement, and potentially sustain
support provided by federal funds.
- Prioritize
future funding on projects that collect standardized, statewide
data; develop computer aided dispatch centers with automatic query
capacity; create direct electronic links between civil and
criminal protection order databases and courts; develop systems to
easily and quickly check statewide civil court records, criminal
records, arrest histories, warrants, in custody status (jail), and
photos of offenders; and connect local data systems to systems
that reduce violence against women.
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