Congress is poised to slash funding for the national Crime Victims Fund — which provides essential services to survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault — by 37% later this year. That staggering $600 million cut would especially harm children who’ve been abused.
It’s up to Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation to protect these vulnerable kids by supporting a bill to ward off the cuts.
More than 600,000 U.S. children experience abuse and neglect each year. In Pennsylvania, authorities counted over 39,000 incidences of suspected child abuse in 2022. Our state also reported 60 child abuse fatalities and 138 near fatalities in 2022.
State agencies and nonprofits work tirelessly each day to help children suffering from abuse. Some of the most effective services available are through Children’s Advocacy Centers.
CACs are support systems for children who have experienced abuse in any form. They offer on-site forensic interviews, trauma therapy, medical evaluations, prevention training, and more. These services help limit the impact of trauma, keep kids safe, and hold offenders accountable.
In Pennsylvania, these centers serve more than 15,000 children across 67 counties.
American children are safer and healthier because of their services. There is a widely documented relationship between child abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. Data show that after undergoing evidence-based trauma treatments at CACs, three of four children stop experiencing PTSD symptoms.
We’ve witnessed firsthand how Pennsylvania children benefit from these services. Last year, Pennsylvania CACs assisted nearly 5,500 minors with medical exams documenting well-being and signs of potential abuse. We helped 1,060 kids access therapy that same year.
Despite their benefits, funding for CACs is unreliable and diminishing. The advocacy centers rely on the Crime Victims Fund, which directs a portion of the money collected from criminal prosecution to support crime victims. However, since money from prosecutions varies from year to year, organizations receiving this funding are subject to frequent and massive budget cuts. There has also been a steady decline in federal funding for CACs in recent years.
Resources are already stretched thin, often resulting in centers having to make the impossible decision of delaying critical services or turning away families altogether. Currently, nearly 40% of centers report that clients must wait at least 31 days to receive a mental health appointment — compared to 21% in 2020.
Future cuts could spur longer delays, staff shortages, service reductions, or even closing centers altogether.
That’s a path we cannot afford to go down, morally or economically. The CDC estimates child maltreatment cases cost the nation $124 billion annually. It’s estimated that every dollar invested in child abuse prevention yields seven dollars in future savings.
Thankfully, lawmakers have introduced the Crime Victims Fund Stabilization Act. This bill would fund services for crime victims from new sources, instead of taxes, and give Congress five years to work out a permanent fix — offering CACs in Pennsylvania more resources and predictability to serve the children in their communities.
Pennsylvania Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Dwight Evans, Mary Gay Scanlon, and Chris Deluzio already cosponsor the House bill. But it’s going to take more vocal support from the Pennsylvania congressional delegation to get this across the finish line before cuts take effect in October.
Children’s Advocacy Centers offer healing and guidance to young Pennsylvanians who have experienced unspeakable trauma. Passing the Crime Victims Fund Stabilization Act is the only responsible path forward to support children in our community.
(Benita Williams is the executive director of the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance; Chris Kirchner is the executive director of the Children’s Advocacy Centers of Pennsylvania.)
