California, which pioneered the nation’s first victims’ compensation program in 1965, now appears to be pioneering new ways to not pay victims. A new analysis from Californians for Safety and Justice (CSJ) finds that since 2019, the California Victim Compensation Board (CalVCB) has been handing out less cash and denying more applications, despite sitting on a growing pile of money.
The numbers tell a grim story: CalVCB distributed about $65m in fiscal year 2019-2020, but only about $50m in 2024-2025 - a drop of more than 30%. The low point came in 2021, when just $46m went to reimbursements for crime scene cleanup, relocation, funerals, and therapy. Meanwhile, denial rates have skyrocketed: in 2019, the board rejected about 5,000 of nearly 47,000 applications; by 2024, it denied roughly 10,250 out of just 25,000 applications.
“It’s the state’s responsibility to the victims of crime and our communities to make sure they’re making good on our tax dollars,” said Tinisch Hollins, CSJ’s executive director, with the kind of restrained frustration that suggests she’s said this many times before. “But since 2019, the state has been failing victims.”
The denials aren’t due to a lack of funds - CalVCB’s budget actually grew from $56m in 2019 to nearly $80m in 2022, and has stayed there. The board didn’t answer questions about the payout plunge, but its 2023-2024 annual report blames applicants for “not provid[ing] all required documentation on time.” Apparently, an increase in applicants prompted a process change that then led to more denials - a bureaucratic ouroboros that leaves victims eating their own tails.
Hollins says many victims don’t even know the program exists, and those who do often give up after hearing denial stories from neighbors. “There are fewer applicants because people gave up on applying,” she said. “For years, these dollars have just been sitting there.” Additional restrictions - like requiring cooperation with police and barring applicants on parole or probation for violent crimes - further exclude the very communities hardest hit by violence. “Just because someone was on probation or went to prison doesn’t exclude them from being a victim if they are shot or injured,” Hollins noted.
The compensation fund hit an all-time low in 2021-2022, right when many communities were enduring historically high homicide rates - a coincidence that feels less like irony and more like indictment. Advocates say the shortfall leaves victims unable to afford relocation, medical care, or even crime scene cleanup, making them vulnerable to being re-victimized in a system that seems determined to keep them in place.
This decline comes as Californians, worried about post-pandemic crime spikes, passed Proposition 36 in 2024, enacting harsher penalties for theft and drug offenses - policies sold as honoring crime survivors. But Hollins sees a disconnect: “These tough-on-crime laws are put in front of voters with the narrative that we’re not doing enough to protect people who’ve been harmed. Meanwhile, the one program in the state that is supposed to respond to victims is not doing that.”
So California has more money, fewer payouts, and a growing list of victims who can’t get help - a system that seems designed to prove that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and unprocessed paperwork.