Every year, state governments across the America give out hundreds of millions of dollars to help the victims of violent crimes navigate one of the most devastating and expensive times of their lives. Many victims of traffic violence, though, never see a dime of that money — in part because they have no idea those programs even exist.
Since the passage the Victims of Crime Act in 1984, every state government has operated a Crime Victim Compensation fund that usually collects fines and penalties from criminal cases and redistributes them to victims who have no other way — such as like insurance payouts or restitution secured through lawsuits — to be made whole.
In 2019 alone, those victims funds paid out a whopping $394 million nationwide.
And the definition of “victim” is often intentionally broad. In addition to the person who was directly harmed by a violent act plus their immediate dependents, even more-distant family members like grandparents, siblings, unmarried partners, and even roommates can often collect money from compensation funds. Witnesses to crimes and the Good Samaritans who tried to help can often benefit, too, in recognition of how traumatizing simply being in proximity to a crime can often be.
“We consider them victims of the crime, too,” said Heather Ayala, national director of victim’s services for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. “Ultimately everybody impacted by this does need help in some form.”
Aside from funeral costs and medical care, compensation funds in some states also pay for mental health counseling, lost wages, childcare, unpaid tuition, and even the travel expenses that can quickly pile up when a loved one is killed or injured far from home.
Many victims of car crashes, though, aren’t eligible to receive any money from these critical funds, even though traffic violence is among the most common forms of violence in America today — because the behaviors that lead to those crashes, like speeding that doesn’t result in outright vehicular manslaughter, are not technically considered “violent” crimes. Crimes like hit-and-run, meanwhile, are explicitly included in some states’ programs, but not in others.
And even when they’re victims of roadway violations that are compensation fund-eligible, like impaired driving or vehicular homicide, the sheer scale of America’s traffic violence crisis could easily outweigh available funds if everyone who qualified for money knew they could apply.
“We’re talking hundreds of thousands of people every year who are injured in impaired driving crashes,” added Ayala. “These crimes are happening on a broad scale, and they have an impact across the country. And a lot of times, we’re not just talking about a broken vehicle … We’re talking about long term physical and mental impacts that are very expensive.”
How victims miss out
Ayala says many victims of drunk driving also miss out on compensation fund money because of tight application windows that require them, in many states, to file claims within as little as a year — even if they spent much of that time recovering in the hospital or overwhelmed by grief that left them totally unable to navigate a maze of paperwork.
Others miss out because of deeply problematic state laws that bar victims from collecting money if they committed certain crimes, including those who were convicted decades earlier in totally unrelated incidents. Survivors of police violence are also often excluded, too, the Alliance for Safety and Justice says.
Those without criminal records can also be denied based on “misconduct criteria” and lack of cooperation with law enforcement, which the Alliance calls “vague and subjective eligibility restrictions that deny victims help based on assessments about their behavior … often driven by initial impressions recorded in a police report, and susceptible to biases based on a survivor’s past interactions with the justice system.” Unsurprisingly, Black victims and their survivors are more likely to be denied compensation on those grounds.
People who were passengers in the cars of drunk drivers, meanwhile, generally aren’t included in even the most generous definitions of “victims,” even if they were children who couldn’t legally get behind the wheel instead — a carveout that MADD has advocated to eliminate. And while those who are refused compensation fund money can appeal, Ayala says the process can be lengthy and demoralizing.
“Typically we do encourage them to apply,” she added. “But we usually say, ‘expect for it to take a lot longer than you think it might take. — and let’s see if we can find you some other emergency support to try to help in the meantime.”
MADD offers a range of free support services to help drunk driving victims, which can complement a compensation fund payout or help tide victims over while they wait for other funds to come through. Maximum compensation fund claims, though, are often capped at far below the actual costs of a typical funeral — and the expense of repairing or replacing a totaled car are almost never eligible, which can be devastating for residents of ultra car-dependent landscapes with no other way to get to work.
Meanwhile, when a compensation fund recipient does eventually win a settlement, insurance claim, or even simply raises money on GoFundMe, many victims are surprised to learn they that they may have to pay that money back to the state, since the government is usually considered a “payer of last resort.”
“That really adds an additional burden onto them,” added Ayala.
A better compensation fund
Ayala says there are broader structural problems with compensation funds, too. Because their funding is typically tied to court fines and penalties, states with plummeting crime or conviction rates or with more-progressive fine structures actually have less to offer victims who need help — and the agencies that serve those victims can’t easily plan for the future because funds are so unstable. Those problems were eased somewhat when then-President Joe Biden signed a bill in 2021 to modernize the Victims of Crime Act, but Ayala says they’re still work to be done.
“It changes from year to year, so they don’t really know how much is going to come down,” she added. “The support services really ebb and flow in terms of what can be provided, and how it can be provided — not just at the level of crime victims compensation, but also through agencies providing support to people who need to apply for crime victim compensation.”
To make compensation funds work for more people, some advocates argue that deeper reforms are needed at the federal and state level, like ending the most harmful and subjective exclusion criteria, increasing maximum payouts to cover the true costs of a loss, stabilizing funds by complementing them with other tax revenues, and simplifying application processes and extending deadlines to make it easier for victims to apply. Increasing outreach to make sure people know that compensation funds even exist is also critical, as is making sure that outreach occurs in multiple languages and is directed towards everyone impacted by the crash — even in if they didn’t lose a breadwinner.
In the meantime, Ayala argues that Vision Zero advocates should pay more attention to making victims financially whole, even as they work to stop deadly crashes before they happen.
“The funds there are so important,” she added. “If they went away, it would be devastating for many people, because there wouldn’t be another place that could fill the void. … Of course, we would rather there weren’t victims who needed access to crime victim compensation, and we do have the solution to prevent these crashes from happening. So we just need the support to make sure that that law actually gets fulfilled.”
