Biden signs bill putting more cash into Crime Victims Fund

There aren’t many bipartisan moments of achievement in a polarized Washington, where legislative stalemate is usually the name of the game.

But President Joe Biden celebrated one Thursday, as he signed into law a measure that won a rare unanimous Senate vote this week: a financial rescue for cash-strapped programs aiding victims of crime.

The Crime Victims Fund, run by the Justice Department, taps revenue from fines and penalties imposed in criminal court cases to provide services to victims, such as counseling and shelter, and to reimburse them for lost wages, health care costs or funeral expenses, among other things.

But money from criminal cases has been on the decline in recent years, as out-of-court settlements become increasingly common. The new legislation would funnel money from those settlements, which currently goes into general revenue, into the Crime Victims Fund instead.

Tapping into out-of-court settlements would result in enough new money coming into the fund to boost spending on mandatory Victims of Crime Act programs by $7.5 billion over a decade, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated.

“This is, what you’ve done, truly life-saving,” Biden told Republican and Democratic lawmakers assembled at a White House East Room signing ceremony. The legislation, he said, will ensure that crime victims “know they’re getting the help they need to move toward healing and toward justice.”