Twice the victim

New Jersey, like every other state, provides compensation to victims of crime or their survivors. The program is funded by millions of federal dollars generated from fines and penalties.

Administered by the state Attorney General, the compensation program here paid out $8.3 million to victims in 2017. The state was among the nation’s first, in 1971, to provide reparation for those affected by violence, sparked by a series in The Star-Ledger detailing the plight of crime victims.

Today, advocates and legislators complain the program fails those who need it most — punishing people who live where crime is never far from their front door, and where relationships between parents and their children are not always legally tied neatly together.

Interviews with victims’ families and advocates, and a review of records show the once-innovative program has morphed into an agency often at odds with its own charitable mission, building barriers to aid and too frequently finding reasons to deny claims.

The agency lumbers on, guided by outdated rules and regulations that have scarcely changed for decades, denying more than half of its applicants.

The NJ Advance Media investigation for NJ.com revealed:

• The amount paid to victims has dropped significantly over the past decade. Some who were eligible, meanwhile, say they were never told help was available. Families can be denied burial expenses if the agency determines a murder victim had any responsibility for their own death.
• The maximum amounts that can be paid out for most claims has not increased in nearly 20 years.
• The agency does not spend all the money it receives for victims’ aid.
• The state board that makes decisions on victims’ claims has been hobbled by vacancies that make it difficult to put together a quorum to meet. Last year, the board canceled one of its four regular meetings and had to reschedule another. The agency itself is currently without a chief administrator.

“They see themselves as an insurance company,” said Elizabeth Ruebman, an organizer with Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice, a national organization of crime survivors. “Their first instinct is to deny claims.”

“They can do a better job. The response ought to be better,” agreed state Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex, who is pushing for major reforms of the program.

Last year, the fund failed to distribute $3.4 million of available relief, records show. What’s more, data obtained through public records requests found the state returned $382,833 in related funding earmarked for separate federal victims’ assistance grants. That money was intended for a variety of support services across the state, but never spent.

That included $36,051 meant to strengthen services for female victims of violence.

The leftover money went back to Washington.

While the maximum amount of money that can be paid from the main fund may not cover the needs of many, the payments — up to $25,000 in benefits and support and $5,000 in funeral expenses — mean a lot to those most affected.

Yet Ruebman, herself a victim of a sexual assault, said the agency seems to have little empathy for those who just experienced something horrible.

“It’s morally reprehensible,” Ruebman said, citing a litany of failures to respond to victims whose lives may be already overwhelmed by burdensome application requirements, child care needs and untreated trauma. Some, she said, are not even aware the victims’ assistance program exists.

Ruebman noted that in places far less inured to crime, an act of violence typically leads to an emotional outpouring from the community. “There are grief counselors and trauma experts and prayer vigils,” she said. But for those whose lives are already desperate, there is little help.

“For people who live in the inner city, often the only support they are going to get is the victims’ comp agency. That is their only chance at hope,” she said. “It would be one thing if there was no money available, but there is money available. They don’t even spend all their money.”