Survivors' Rights Funding Act

Full Title:
A bill to provide additional funding to States that provide certain rights to sexual assault survivors, and for other purposes.

Summary#

This bill changes how the federal government gives extra formula grant money to States that provide certain rights to sexual assault survivors. It updates rules in a 2023 law (34 U.S.C. 10441 note) so the Attorney General will increase covered formula grants for States that have laws, regulations, practices, or policies that give survivors the rights in 18 U.S.C. 3772 or rights that are substantially similar. The bill creates three funding tiers and divides available money among them: 60% to States with a law that provides the rights in 18 U.S.C. 3772, 25% to States with some combination of laws, regulations, practices, or policies that provide those rights, and 15% to States with rights that are substantially similar. A State may receive money from only one tier. The bill also amends 18 U.S.C. 3772 to require that sexual assault evidence kits be preserved for not less than 20 years and changes the requirement for requesting notification before disposal or further preservation from a "written request" to a plain "request."

What it means for you#

  • If you live in a State that adopts or already has the specified survivor rights, your State could receive increased federal grant money under this program.
  • Evidence from sexual assault cases (evidence kits) must be kept for at least 20 years under the changed rule in 18 U.S.C. 3772.
  • Survivors (or others acting under the law) can make a request to be notified before an evidence kit is disposed of or to request further preservation without the request being required to be "written."
  • States can qualify for only one of the three funding tiers, so how a State’s laws or policies are defined will affect which share of available funds it could receive.

Expenses#

No publicly available information on total federal cost or exact funding amounts in this bill. The bill does specify how amounts that are made available to carry out the grant program would be split among the three tiers: 60%, 25%, and 15%.

Proponents' View#

No publicly available information.

Opponents' View#

No publicly available information.