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Victims Rights Week

By: Jim Costa
By: Jim Costa
Date: April 26, 2006
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Criminal Justice


VICTIMS RIGHTS WEEK -- (House of Representatives - April 26, 2006)

Mr. COSTA. Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak on behalf of the Victims Rights Caucus which Congressmembers Poe, Harris and I chair. We have introduced a resolution that recognizes what many Americans know all too well: crime does not know any geographic, demographic, or political boundary. It touches all of our communities.

We support the Victims Rights Week and the Crime Victims Fund, legacies that President Reagan and Congress passed in the 1980s. The Crime Victims Fund is distributed to service providers who assist millions of crime victims annually throughout our communities in a host of ways. It is paid for by fines levied on criminals, not taxpayers.

Yet today, our caucus is fighting to protect that fund from this administration's wrongheaded attempt to balance the budget on the backs of victims by putting those dollars into the general fund. That is simply wrong.

We must ensure that this fund is used for its original intent: to provide for crime victims, to provide for probation departments, and to help the victims who truly need and deserve our assistance to hold offenders accountable.

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