Office on Violence Against Women

Organization

The Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) is headed by a Director. The Principal Deputy Director serves under the Director, and the Deputy Director for Tribal Affairs under the Principal Deputy Director. On the third and lowest tier of the office rests Training and Technical Assistance, Program Development and Evaluation and Demonstration/Special Projects.

Director

Since 2002, the Director of the OVW has been a position that must be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The Director serves as the liaison between the Federal, state, tribal, and international governments in regards to matters concerning Violence Against Women (i.e., crimes of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking). The Director also serves in that role internationally, with Native American tribes in the country, and within other offices of the United States Government. The Director reports to the Attorney General and is responsible for the legal and policy provisions that are implemented under the Violence Against Women Act. The Director of the OVW also has ultimate control over all grants, cooperative agreements and contracts that OVW issues, and oversees a budget of almost $400 million.

Grant Programs

There are currently twenty-four grant programs that the OVW administers. Twenty of these programs use discretionary grants, which are a specific type of grant in which the Office determines both how funds will be used and in what context. The remaining four grants are formula grants, which are grants that must be distributed according to how the legislation describes. In order to receive a project grant, the grant must meet certain standards and qualifications and the recipient must be eligible for the grant.

Formerly Authorized Grant Programs

Activities previously funded by these grant programs are supported by the Consolidated Youth Program.

Besides these specifically mentioned grant programs, the Senate bill that enacted the VAWA also created National Domestic Violence Hotline and provided grants for police training and other additional training in the judicial system. The bill also reassessed current laws on prosecuting domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking and provided for the creation of new laws to address gaps in jurisdiction.[42] According to the non-profit Break the Cycle, the community focus of many of these grants has made the legislation influential in improving services, advocacy, and responses by criminal justice across the country.

Funding Criticisms

There have been critiques of the OVW. Generally, the criticisms regard the implementation of the OVW's programs, i.e., how effective the programs have been in actually decreasing domestic violence. While many scholars do not object to the idea of the VAWA, some specialists have opinions about to whom, where and how the OVW should allocate its funding.

A study from the Journal of Marriage and Family stated that the "VAWA does not specifically target funds to areas that are in the greatest need-communities with the most intimate partner violence. Instead of being targeted, such organizations must apply for VAWA funding. Although some effort has been made to distribute funds to reach the high-need areas and to address specific inadequacies, the funding process currently favors existing organizations. However, this may not be the most effective way of reaching communities with the greatest need." The OVW has taken this criticism under consideration, and is currently in the process of finding new strategies to improve in these areas.

Other critics postulate that the VAWA does not allocate enough resources to men who suffer from domestic violence. There are claims that the OVW portrays women as the only victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking, while men are solely perpetrators of these crimes. The CDC offers that 13.8% of males have reported abuse, but supporting organizations of the VAWA, such as the NNEDV, posit that that number has actually increased up to 37%. Others, including Connie Morella for the National Council of Jewish Women, have said that the VAWA does not allocate enough funds or provide assistance to immigrant women, who they say often cannot receive state or federal assistance because of their status. Concerned Women for America believe that the OVW should do more to promote a better image of marriage and healthy relationships and focus on real abuse crimes, instead of using the VAWA to expand the meaning of domestic violence to more trivial cases and leaving less monetary funding and judiciary assistance for the 'real' victims. At present, the OVW's definition of domestic violence encompasses all forms of abuse, including those of an emotional, economic, psychological, physical and sexual nature.

The reauthorization of the VAWA on February 28, 2013 was achieved despite some significant controversy in regards to the new provisions of the Act that include the LGBT community, Native Tribes, and undocumented immigrants. Twenty-two members of the U.S. House of representatives opposed the reauthorization because of the additional provision that protects those minority communities. However, according to the CDC, partners in homosexual relationships say that they have encountered similar or greater levels of domestic violence in their lifetime than their straight counterparts. The 2013 re-authorization of the VAWA proved to be more challenging than its last re-authorization in 2005, but the achieved changes focus mostly in who the VAWA will now protect and how much money the Act allocates for helping those additional groups.

Challenges Facing OVW

Mandatory Arrest Laws

While Congress was preparing to reauthorize VAWA in 2013, Time Magazine published an article arguing that "[d]omestic violence is still a severely under-reported crime and some critics say mandatory arrest policies have exacerbated this problem." Furthermore, in Time Magazine the author concluded that "mandatory arrest laws remove the preferences of abused women from a process that can leave them financially strapped and worried that the state will take custody of their children."

The mandatory arrest policies were established in the original 1994 version of VAWA. These policies encouraged law enforcement to make arrests and move forward with domestic violence cases without the cooperation of victims. Contrary to what Time Magazine states about mandatory arrest provisions, the provisions were removed from VAWA in 2000. While reviewing and reauthorizing VAWA in 2000, Congress changed from "encourage mandatory arrest" policies to "encourage arrest" policies instead, which focus on arresting based on probable cause.