Stop Violence against Women Formula Grant Program Essay ⋆ Criminal Justice Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The STOP (Services, Training, Officers, Prosecutors) Violence Against Women Formula Grant Program was first authorized in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 1994 and was reauthorized in 2000 and 2005. It is managed by the Office on Violence Against Women of the U.S. Department of Justice. All states, territories, and the District of Columbia are eligible applicants for STOP funds. The act contains a formula for the amounts to be distributed to states and territories.

To be eligible for STOP funds, states and territories must certify that governmental entities pay the full out-of-pocket costs of forensic medical examinations for sexual assault victims. STOP funds may be used to pay for forensic medical examinations.

State and territorial grantees must also certify that judicial policy and practice in the jurisdiction gives domestic violence offenders notice of the requirements of the federal firearms statutes and related federal, state, or local laws related to firearms prohibitions. Grantees must, likewise, certify that no government official may ask or require a sexual assault victim to submit to a polygraph or other truth-telling examination as a condition precedent to investigation of the offense.

Grantees must further certify that their laws, policies, and practices do not require victims of domestic and dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking to pay the costs for filing and prosecution of criminal charges or any costs associated with the filing, issuance, registration or service of a warrant, a protection order or a witness subpoena, and prosecution of the domestic violence offenses.

The STOP match requirement is limited; states or territories that petition for a waiver of match and demonstrate financial need, therefore, will not be required to furnish matching funds. Tribes, territories, and victim service providers are exempt from any match.

States and territories must distribute STOP funds to develop and strengthen law enforcement, prosecution, courts, probation, and victim service initiatives to effectively address and eliminate violence against women, including stalking, dating violence, sexual assault, and domestic violence.

Grantees may make awards to local and tribal governments, courts, and nonprofit victim services programs (the subgrantees) that are engaged in activities within the scope of the STOP program and that focus on the development and implementation of comprehensive, coordinated community responses to promote victim safety and perpetrator accountability. In making grants, each state or territory must allocate 25% of grant funds to law enforcement agencies, 25% to prosecutors, 5% to courts, 30% to victim services, and the balance may be awarded at the discretion of the grantee. At least 10% of the awards for victim services must be targeted to linguistically and culturally specific services offered by community-based organizations.

Subgrantees under STOP must seek to forge collaboration between the criminal and civil justice systems and victim advocacy programs. These community collaboratives must also seek to engage traditionally underserved constituency groups, faith-based and community organizations, communities of color, Indian tribes, immigrant groups, and those groups and individuals historically marginalized because of linguistic, age, disability, and class barriers. STOP funds may be used to create programs/policy to effectively and consistently respond to domestic violence inflicted by law enforcement.

A corresponding section of VAWA authorizes grants to tribal governments for similar funding to address violence against women of tribal nations.

Bibliography:

S. Department of Justice. (n.d.). STOP Violence Against Women Formula Grant Program. Retrieved from https://www.justice.gov/ovw/file/839466/download

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