![]() Some programs offer to directly pay funeral homes or medical providers. … Those funds take months to arrive to families,” said Aswad Thomas, vice president of the Alliance for Safety and Justice, a nonprofit working to reform victim compensation and other aspects of the criminal justice system. “So many families often can’t rely solely on that reimbursement model. She was met with administrative hurdles, a denial that blamed her son for his own death, a lengthy appeal - all while paying up front through a personal loan that gathered interest as she waited. Pamela White turned to Louisiana’s victim compensation board for help when her son, Dararius Evans, was killed in a shooting a few days after Christmas in 2019. The programs also struggle under often unstable funding mechanisms that leave their budgets vulnerable to shortages and the changing priorities of lawmakers, especially those that rely on court fees and fines as their main source or only source of funding. Many programs require victims to pay for those expenses first and exhaust all means of payment before they reimburse costs, often at rates that don’t fully cover expenses. Thousands of crime victims each year are confronted with the difficult financial reality of state compensation programs that are billed as safety nets to offset costs like funerals, medical care, relocation and other needs. ![]() By MIKE CATALINI and CLAUDIA LAUER (Associated Press)
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