Editor’s note: Learn more about the resources available to crime victims at the Pennsylvania Office of Victims' Services website. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233. PCAR's rape crisis hotline is 1-888-772-7227. If you are in immediate danger, call 911.
HARRISBURG — Across Pennsylvania, organizations that provide resources for crime victims are scaling back services, cutting positions, and leaving key roles vacant after the federal fund supporting them has received record-low deposits during President Donald Trump’s second administration.
These providers offer no-cost services to people dealing with the aftermath of domestic violence, sexual assault, and other kinds of crimes.
“Domestic violence victims who call in the middle of the night, who have been strangled, they try to get them to a shelter so they can feel safe,” Kathy Buckley, director of Pennsylvania’s Office of Victims’ Services, said of this type of support.
“Rape victims, if they go to the hospital to get a forensic rape exam, the sexual assault agency is there to accompany them.”
These services are funded, in large part, by the fines and penalties that individuals and companies pay out when they are convicted of white-collar crimes, or settle with the federal government ahead of a full trial.
Those funding sources have shrunk as the Trump administration pulls back on white-collar prosecutions and issues frequent pardons.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said at a November news conference that the administration has a “very thorough review process” when considering pardons, and that the president aims to pardon individuals he believes were unfairly prosecuted under former President Joe Biden.
Under Trump, annual deposits into the federal Crime Victims Fund — established by Congress and President Ronald Reagan in 1984 by the Victims of Crimes Act — have reached their lowest level since his first term, when additions were similarly low.
The White House referred questions about the fund to the Department of Justice. The department did not respond to a request for comment.
In Pennsylvania, the state office warned local victim service providers to prepare for a 7.5% cut to grants this fall, officials told Spotlight PA.
Providers have already reduced their offerings in anticipation of the cut on Oct. 1, Buckley said.
In response to a survey from her office, local providers described cuts to emergency housing, civil legal services, and therapy. They also said they’ve eliminated or pared back staff positions, and planned for attrition.
When these providers lose funding, they also can’t maintain staff salaries, Buckley said, resulting in greater staff turnover and burnout.
“It’s like this endless cycle,” Buckley said. “There has to be a way … to support such critical lifesaving services to people in their darkest days.”
How the fund works
The federal Crime Victims Fund is the only source of income for millions of dollars of grants that pay for victim services at the county level. The fund is mainly supported by various payments, fines, and penalties collected by federal prosecutors, courts, and prisons.
Since 2000, Congress has passed an annual cap on the amount of money disbursed through the grants, with the goal of protecting the fund from the volatility that can result from the policy choices of different presidential administrations.
The Pennsylvania Office of Victims’ Services receives an annual, population-driven allocation from the fund that it then distributes to the county providers. As the fifth-largest state, Pennsylvania receives the fifth-largest allocation from the federal government.
The local providers in turn use the money to pay for an array of resources: 24/7 crisis hotlines, housing, counseling, and legal aid; and advocates to attend hearings, hospital visits, and police interviews alongside victims.
Contributions to the fund have varied year to year. They hit a peak in fiscal 2017, when the Department of Justice under President Barack Obama finalized a deal with Volkswagen that added $2.8 billion to it. Congress, in turn, raised the cap to accommodate the windfall.
But the next year, reflecting Trump’s first full year in office, new deposits to the account hit a 15-year low, with just $445 million added. Subsequent deposits in his first term were similarly meager.
With the cap still high, but new deposits relatively low, states spent down the fund quickly. Available money plummeted from $13 billion to $3.2 billion in four years.
The fund began to recover under President Joe Biden, who signed legislation directing fines and penalties made under settlement agreements to support victim services.
But as more money came in, Congress restricted the amount going out, and brought the cap down to its lowest level in a decade — about $1.4 billion — by 2024.
In October 2024, Pennsylvania service providers faced a 5% cut to their grants as a result. That cut has not been restored.
As of April, new deposits are once again setting a record low: Only $336 million have hit the fund since October 2025, the lowest single year contribution since 1998.
The fund balance is now at $3.6 billion, with about half available for distribution to the entire country.
Local impact
In Berks County, the only local domestic violence and sexual assault victim service provider, Safe Berks, has already cut three positions: a counselor, a licensed therapist, and a community response specialist.
The community response specialist provides office hours at hospitals, college campuses, and other locations “so that we can be places where people already feel comfortable,” said CEO Beth Garrigan, “and we were meeting with victims and survivors where they were instead of making them come to us.”
“So, that's been a huge change for us,” Garrigan said. “We're down to just one right now, so obviously that person can't be everywhere we would like them to be.”
The Crime Victims’ Center of Chester County, Inc. is similarly scaling back while preserving core services, said Chief Executive Officer Christine Zaccarelli. Her organization runs a comprehensive center that provides resources to victims of all crimes (excluding domestic violence, which is supported by a different non-profit organization).
In anticipation of the looming cut, they’ve left vacant positions open, Zaccarelli said, including a violence prevention educator and an advocate, who accompanies crime victims to appointments, hearings, and other events.
The attrition has made the normal turnover that the center experiences feel “overwhelming for our team,” Zaccarelli said. Holding the positions open means that if another person leaves, the time it takes to hire and train someone new comes on top of an increased workload.
“That’s when it’s really, really felt that we’re down a staff member,” Zaccarelli said.
In a survey of providers across the state, the Office of Victims’ Services found other organizations taking similar steps.
Of the 127 providers who responded, more than half reported burnout among staff as they try to maintain the same level of services with less funding. More than 30% reported high turnover and 64% said they are leaving vacant positions open.
With less funding, the providers gain even less of a competitive advantage against other local employers that can pay more and provide benefits. Nearly a quarter of the respondents reported low wages and low or no benefits as their No. 1 staffing challenge.
Chester County is expensive, and Zaccarelli struggles to offer salaries that can compete with employers offering higher wages.
Finally, 75% of respondents said they are unable to fully meet the needs of victims.
State advocates went to Washington, D.C., in June in support of a bipartisan bill that would add additional sources of income to the fund. Joyce Lukima of the Pennsylvania Coalition for Advancing Respect, a statewide organization that advocates for victims of sexual violence, was among the group.
Lukima said there is still help available. But the scope of what Pennsylvania has lost can be “overwhelming,” she said. “Pennsylvania once had a very stable, vibrant victim service community, and I felt confident with communities’ ability to provide services to victims of crime, and specifically survivors of sexual abuse and assault.”
But the cuts to the fund, alongside flat funding for rape crisis centers from the state, have put that in jeopardy.
“We as a state worked hard to build a really robust network of services,” Lukima said.
“We are at a place now where we don’t think that’s going to be tenable.”