The best reporting on domestic violence combines personal stories with the policy choices that shape lives 

While reporting my second feature as a Center for Health Journalism National Fellow earlier this year — focused on how advocates helping domestic violence victims were navigating rising abortion restrictions — I kept hearing the same question from sources: Did I know what was happening with VOCA funding? 

I didn’t know, but I started digging. I learned that VOCA funds refer to a pot of money called the Crime Victims Fund, established by the Victims of Crime Act, a 1984 law that provides a critical source of funding for services for victims of domestic and sexual violence nationwide, including children. The funds, which mostly come from financial penalties levied in corporate criminal cases, have been plummeting in recent years as federal prosecutors pursued more deferred and non-prosecutions agreements, which allow defendants more time to pay up or avoid charges entirely if they cooperate with the government. All this has left lifesaving services for survivors in the lurch just as they’re most needed — amid a nationwide housing crisis; the Dobbs decision, which made it harder for pregnant survivors to flee abusers; and as rates of domestic violence have continued to soar since the pandemic. 

Testimonies collected by the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) indicated that further VOCA cuts — 40% in fiscal year 2024 — would force domestic violence organizations to eliminate staff, housing programs for survivors, and hotlines across the country. The more I read about this, the more shocked I was that there hadn’t been substantial reporting on the crisis. I also became more curious about how these services had already been impacted by cuts in prior years. So I decided to fill in that gap myself, with the help of the Center’s Domestic Violence Impact Reporting Fund. 

The reporting wound up being some of the most meaningful — and challenging — work I have done thus far in my career. Here are some of the most important lessons I learned along the way.

Contextualize DV as not just personal, but political.

Stories about domestic violence often seem to focus on individual cases, or their connections to systemic inequities in the criminal justice system. But it feels rarer to come across stories about domestic violence policy — and those seem among the most important stories to me. Federal policies like the Victims of Crime Act can play a significant role in the difference between whether or not survivors across the country, and the organizations dedicated to helping them, receive crucial support. And while DV should be a bipartisan issue — and is often described as such by lawmakers — it turns out that politicians don’t always actually support legislation that serves survivors.

In the course of this reporting, I discovered there were a few other pieces of federal legislation to focus on: The VOCA Fix Act, which President Biden signed into law in 2021 to divert revenue from deferred and non-prosecution agreements to bolster the Crime Victims Fund, and the Crime Victims Fund Stabilization Act, a piece of legislation introduced in the current session of Congress that would divert some funds collected through the False Claims Act, which penalizes defrauding of the government, into the Crime Victims Fund. (That bill ultimately failed to get a hearing or floor vote.) 

Looking for gaps in federal or state laws that should protect survivors — and questioning the legislators whose actions could make a difference — can help remind readers that DV is not just a personal matter, but one that politicians can help mitigate.

Work to fill the data gaps.

There are some reliably strong sources of data for reporting on domestic violence, including NNEDV and the National Domestic Violence Hotline. But beyond that, it can be difficult to easily secure reliable national or state-level data. In my early interviews, I learned that not all states had been equally affected by the federal VOCA cuts, because some had allocated state funding to eligible programs to offset the federal cuts. 

California, for example, allocated $103 million, while Rhode Island lawmakers rejected advocates’ request for only $2 million in supplemental funding. It became evident to me that to get an accurate picture of how the cuts were affecting the country, I would have to collect data from all the states. 

To do so, I used a combination of databases maintained by the National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators and the National Association of State Budget Officers to collect information from all 50 states about whether or not they had allocated funding in their most recent budgets or legislative sessions to offset the VOCA cuts to DV services. This was time consuming — it took a couple of months and often involved multiple email chains with officials in each state — but it proved well worth the effort: I learned that while most states actually had allocated funding to offset the federal cuts, it was not enough to insulate programs from the impacts of a years-long decline in federal funding. And, I learned of a couple innovative ways that states like Maryland and Colorado were implementing longer-term solutions to support local VOCA-funded services, which I highlighted in subsequent reporting on the issue.

Don’t assume readers understand the significance of DV services.

I used my story to not just highlight which services were being impacted by the VOCA cuts, but also to explain why and how those services were actually important to survivors.

For example, when I highlighted the loss of legal advocates in Judge Shelly Santry’s courtroom in Louisville, Kentucky due to VOCA cuts, I also explained why those services were so critical: Legal advocates educate survivors about the importance and limits of emergency protective orders, help them navigate the court system, and provide a source of support at a time when survivors often face elevated risks from abusers who are angry they are leaving or getting law enforcement involved. In another section, focused on California, I used a scene of an advocate explaining where a survivor could seek shelter to emphasize the distinctions between domestic violence shelters and regular homeless shelters: While the former keep their locations confidential and typically allow people to stay during the day, the latter usually do not do either. 

These explanations not only provide more context for readers, but also indicate some of the far-reaching effects of abuse that can linger long after someone leaves an abuser.

Focus on the unique impacts facing marginalized groups.

I was lucky to be connected with Paris Alexander, the main source of the story, who shared their personal experience of benefitting from VOCA-funded services. Paris was exactly the kind of source a reporter hopes for: Open about their experiences and eager to share them. Plus, certain aspects of Paris’s story — the fact that they are nonbinary and had been undocumented — allowed me to highlight the systemic barriers facing marginalized survivors and the important role VOCA plays in funding specialized services for those victims. 

For example, while Paris lucked out by getting a room at Rhode Island’s only LGBTQ-specific DV shelter (funded by VOCA), other LGBTQ survivors — who already face higher rates of DV than cisgender and straight people — may deal with being misgendered or even bullied if they wind up at regular DV shelters. And while Paris also benefitted from that organization’s VOCA-funded immigration advocacy team, who ultimately helped them secure citizenship, I learned that immigrant survivors are on the whole particularly vulnerable to abuse and can sometimes struggle to access services because of their lack of status.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered state agencies to clear out homeless encampments following the Supreme Court’s Grants Pass ruling this summer. This provided another opportunity to highlight the impacts of DV to marginalized survivors; in this case, those experiencing homelessness and with limited financial means. I interviewed experts at the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence and visited a DV treatment and prevention organization in Fresno — which has the highest number of calls to law enforcement for DV per capita in the state — to illustrate how DV and homelessness are linked, and how the Supreme Court ruling would impact DV survivors as federal VOCA funds have been declining.

These case studies and the accompanying context helped ensure my reporting highlighted the particular challenges survivors face based on their gender and sexuality, immigration status, and income/housing status. In doing so, my work showed that there is not a singular story or manifestation of domestic violence.

I hope these tips prove useful in your future reporting on domestic violence — a pervasive issue that, in my opinion, does not get anywhere near enough reporting.