Office on Violence Against Women Essay ⋆ Criminal Justice Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) is part of the U.S. Department of Justice and states on its Web site that its mission is “to provide federal leadership to reduce violence against women, and to administer justice for and strengthen services to all victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.” OVW achieves this mission through a variety of activities that enhance the ability of states, local, and tribal governments and other community based organizations in responding to the varying forms of violence against women.

OVW was established in 1995 after the passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). One of OVW’s major responsibilities is to manage the distribution of federal funds appropriated through VAWA. To date, OVW has distributed over $2 billion of VAWA funds through 12 different grant programs.

One major grant program provides block grants to the states under the STOP Violence Against Women Formula Grant Program. Funds are provided for strengthening law enforcement, prosecution, courts, and victim services. Other programs focus on encouraging the arrest of perpetrators of violence against women, strengthening responses by rural communities, and providing legal assistance to victims or survivors. Additional grant programs focus on supporting higher education campus-based efforts to stop violence against women, programs for older women and women with disabilities, supervised visitation centers, and transitional housing facilities. Finally, grant programs also focus on strengthening state and tribal sexual assault and domestic violence coalitions of service providers and Indian tribal governments. OVW also supports national technical assistance for each of these grant programs.

Occasionally, OVW also creates special initiatives. For example, in 2004 President George W. Bush allocated $20 million to support the President’s Family Justice Center Initiative (PFJCI). The PFJCI was an effort to replicate the success of family justice centers such as San Diego’s in 15 other communities around the United States. Other special initiatives include the Judicial Oversight Demonstration Initiative; the Green book Initiative focused on child welfare, domestic violence agency, and court coordination; the Safe Havens supervised visitation demonstration projects; the Safety for Indian Women initiative; the VAWA Measuring Effectiveness initiative; a DNA technology project; and efforts in faith-based organizations and among men.

Each time the VAWA is reauthorized, most recently in 2005, there are changes to OVW’s grant programs and the allocation of funding to each such program.

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