Vol. 6, No.
4 - Fall 2003
VAWA STOP Grants
In response to the
reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act of 2000, which called for
courts to receive a percentage of the state’s STOP grant funds, the National
Center for State Courts recently conducted a survey that looked at whether
courts were receiving the allocated funds and how they were using them.
Brenda Uekert, NCSC senior
research associate and chair of the National Center’s Family Violence
Community of Practice, said the survey found the majority of responding states
are receiving the funds, however, seven administrative offices said their courts
were not receiving the full amount of the allocated funds, and eight courts
weren’t sure.
In addition, several states
that distribute the funds through a competitive bidding process said that the
bidding process created challenges to meeting the mandate because few courts
applied for STOP funds.
The survey, which included
members of the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) and was
conducted in June 2003, revealed the most common uses for the funds include:
judicial and court staff training, developing judicial resource guides,
supporting programs for victims, and supporting specialized courts or dockets.
In addition, Madelynn Herman,
NCSC knowledge management analyst, used the Court2Court and COSCA listservs to
conduct a separate survey on the use of STOP funds. For these results, click on http://www.ncsconline.org/WC/publications/KIS_VAWAcourtfundingPUB.pdf.
STOP Grants
The
reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act of 2000 ensured
that state courts receive funding to improve their response to
domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking cases. Under the
STOP (Services, Training, Officers, and Prosecutors) Violence
Against Women Grants Program, each state and territory must allocate
5 percent of the state’s STOP grants to courts.
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