Pantsuits and Lawsuits with Attorneys General Kris Mayes and Dana Nessel

Journey to Justice: The Hidden Cost of Cuts on Crime Victims

• Attorneys General Kris Mayes & Dana Nessel • Season 1 • Episode 6

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Federal funding for crime victim services is evaporating at an alarming rate. Since 2017, the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) fund has plummeted by a staggering 83%, leaving millions of vulnerable survivors without critical support. The human cost is devastating.

We sit down with Kirstin Flores and Rebekah Snyder Cox, who lead victim services divisions in Arizona and Michigan, to understand what's at stake. Their stories from the frontlines reveal how these funding cuts threaten the very foundation of our justice system. When a sexual assault victim living in a shelter can't access a phone or transportation to participate in their case, justice remains out of reach. When domestic violence survivors have nowhere to turn because shelters can't keep their doors open, lives hang in the balance.

The conversation explores how victim advocates serve as the unsung heroes of our criminal justice system, providing crucial emotional support, safety planning, and practical assistance at every stage of a case. Without them, cases collapse, victims remain traumatized, and offenders escape accountability. As Rebekah poignantly shares, "I just called a sexual assault victim who reported her crime in 2007. The offender fled, and the case went cold. Now I'm calling her again saying 'We mean it this time.' Without the help of federal partnerships, we couldn't even locate these fugitives."

The episode also examines how post-conviction issues uniquely traumatize victims. When offenders unexpectedly receive parole or pardons without proper notification to victims, it shatters trust in the system. As one victim advocate described the impact: "It's indescribable. It takes them right back to the crime and brings everything back, but now 30 years later without their support system."

What can we do to ensure justice for crime victims? Start by understanding that victim services aren't optional—they're essential infrastructure that makes our entire legal system function. Contact your representatives about supporting VOCA funding and connect with local victim service organizations in your community to see how you can help fill the growing gaps.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

H ello and welcome back to Pantsuits and Lawsuits, the only podcast on air where you get to hear from two state attorneys general about the cases shaping our nation's legal landscape in real time.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

Every day, the morning headlines announce some new crisis. It's hard to stay on top of things, especially when it's all mired in precise legal language that we both went to law school for three years to learn how to understand.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

And that's why we're here as your trusty neighborhood AGs, to break it all down and explain what impact the decisions being made in DC could and certainly will have on your daily life.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

So, Dana, April 6th begins National Crime Victims Week. So for today's episode, we're bringing on Kirstin Flores, who is the executive director of the Arizona Attorney General's Office of Victim Services, as well as Rebekah Snyder Cox, who manages the Michigan Department of Attorney General's Victims' Rights Victim Services Division, and they're going to help us talk about the importance of federal funding and resources when it comes to supporting crime victims in the wake of tragedy.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

Well, before we start talking to them, let's get a little bit of background on this situation. Now, during the first Trump term, they rolled back billions of dollars in funding for the Victims of Crime Act and the Violence Against Women Act programs and, as just one of many examples, in 2019, the Department of Housing and Urban Development abruptly pulled $13.5 million in grant funding to provide victims of sex and human trafficking with support of housing services like emergency shelter, child care, trauma therapy. Some organizations actually had already sent their applications in by the time of the announcement, and all that time and effort was just wasted and it left so many people in incredibly dangerous situations, all because Trump could not find it in his heart or wallet to support the most vulnerable people in our communities. And, in fact, I would go so far as to say that it seems as though Donald Trump has just been openly contemptuous of crime victims.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

I'd agree, and now that Trump is back in office, they are definitely back to their old tricks. On February 6, the office on violence against women halted all 2025 funding opportunities really unbelievable. For context, the OVW (office of violence against women) allocated more than 684 million dollars in grants for the 2024 fiscal year. Grants previously listed included ones aimed at ending abuse against vulnerable adults, providing housing for victims of domestic violence and helping local law enforcement stop cyber crimes. As a result of our OMB lawsuit, the Trump administration was ordered to unfreeze these funds. They had frozen those funds, which was crazy, of course, but the previously posted grant opportunities were tak en offline and the OVW webite is still directing visitors not to finalize any applications Meanwhile, the shelters doing important work on the ground in Arizona and Michigan and, frankly, all across the country, don't know if they'll be able to keep their lights on past next fall.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

Yeah, it's incredibly tragic. And you know, look, if our legal system isn't helping victims of crime, honestly what's the point? You know we're losing sight of the fact that, first and foremost, our job is to deliver justice to those that have been wronged. And that philosophy dates, you know, back to Reagan's task force on the victims of crime. You know that report that they put out back in 1982 had so many great recommendations like establishing confidential victim counseling, providing protection against victim and witness intimidation, prioritizing the needs of victims when prosecuting their abusers and, you know, real collaboration across so many different agencies.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

Yeah, that was an incredibly important report and here is a direct quote from that report: "W e also found that there is no quick remedy to the innocent victim's plight. Only the sustained efforts of federal, state and local governments can restore balance to the criminal justice system." They passed the Victims of Crime Act, also known as VOCA, and associated funding streams two years after that report was issued. A pot of money not funded by taxpayer dollars but through the fines, settlements, bonds and other monetary penalties associated with federal criminal prosecutions.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

And last year marked the 40th anniversary of VOCA, but the dwindling Crime Victims Fund is really circling the drain and, according to the DOJ, the balance dropped by about 83 percent, from about 13 billion in 2017 to just over 2 billion by the end of 2024. So really for the last decade, responsibility has been shifting towards the states to pick up the federal government slack. More cuts at this moment in time are so ill-advised, to say the very least.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

Yeah, that's for sure, and, Dana, I'm sure you hear the same thing, but out here, voca is so incredibly important and the last thing we need are these additional cuts. These resources support thousands of victim assistance programs throughout the United States, serving an average of 3.7 million victims of crime per year. So they fund things like child advocacy centers, domestic violence agencies, rape crisis centers, and, as the top law enforcement officers in our respective states, we have an obligation to protect public safety. So recent decisions from the federal government to roll back support for these programs make our jobs harder in the states and have the potential, frankly, to make communities less safe.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

It's so tragic and so upsetting, and especially from the perspective of the jobs that we do each and every day to try to protect victims of crime. This is so fundamentally flawed and incredibly unhelpful.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

All right. Well, it is so great to have both Kirstin Flores from the Arizona Attorney General's office with us and Rebekah Snyder Cox from Michigan, and thanks for joining us, both of you. Looking forward to this conversation.

Kirstin Flores:

Thank you for having us.

Rebekah Snyder Cox:

Thank you guys.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

One of the things that we were talking about before you guys came on is you know the importance of VOCA funding for crime victims and how that is impacting your ability as people who directly work with victims each and every day. It is your job, but what does it mean when you are either having delays in the distribution of grant funding or when grant funding is terminated altogether?

Kirstin Flores:

The uncertainty of not knowing whether or not we're going to have grant funding really can affect the staff and the morale of the office, and that could trickle down to the services that are provided. The funding by VOCA is just so vital in the work that we do. I would say that in every case of ours whether it's our advocates working on our investigations, our trial cases, our appellate stage, when we offer resources to a victim, whether it be to a free victim's rights attorney, to the victim's compensation program or to community-based organizations who can help with rebuilding lives after domestic violence abuse, are all resources paid for by VOCA. And this is inclusive of the services that we provide in the Attorney General's Office and ensuring those rights that the victims are notified, that they're making sure they're supported emotionally and feeling safe during court, even sometimes having a facility dog available during forensic interview are all funded with those federal funds. So it really is vital and not knowing puts us in a really difficult position

Rebekah Snyder Cox:

To echo some of that as well, we have a case right now that's a cold case sexual assault. The victim is in towards the upper peninsula in Michigan, so from Lansing it's between a four and five hour drive, not considering the weather. She is also unhomed, and so right now we have been partnering and working with the shelter that she's staying with. That has connected her with local resources that are VOCA funded. Her own shelter is funded by these federal dollars, so it is the way that we're able to talk with her all the time. She doesn't have a phone, she doesn't have access to email or the internet without the services that she's being provided right now in her community. We have partnered with local victim advocates from a community-based sexual assault agency that is making sure that when we hang up the phone with her that she's using through the shelter services that she has someone to debrief with and talk with.

Rebekah Snyder Cox:

And again, when the money is not getting to them, when they're having issues keeping the lights on or paying their staff, those support groups aren't happening, the counseling one-on-one services that are offered aren't happening, and so it's really vital for us as we work with victims around the state. Again, that might be 10 hours away from where our offices are located and we can't make it up there for every single conversation that we're having. We typically go up for court events right, and so to be able to give them services where they're at is so important. To be able to ensure that they're coming back to court and they can testify. This victim in particular is one of our operations survivor justice ones. So again we're re-engaging her after 10 plus years, and from when we called her to when we got the defendant back in the state, it was a five month span, and without those local services we would have lost contact with her and maybe lost where she was because she was unhomed. So they're incredibly important to our work every day.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

Yeah, that's an amazing story, and I mean Arizona. We were actually one of the first, if not the first state to adopt a comprehensive victims bill of rights. Can you speak to that as well? Like, what are some of the things we're doing that would be deeply harmed by additional cuts?

Kirstin Flores:

Arizona has really just made a big effort trying to make sure that all of our victim advocates are educated on victims' rights at every stage of the process. What can get confusing that we've identified is the post-conviction stage. Victims think it's over. Advocates may not set expectations for that next phase of the case and there is a lot of post-conviction rights and activity from probation, prison, parole. All of those actually are services that are provided by VOCA funds as well in Arizona and a lot of times victims can feel re-victimized at many stages of the process and if we have educated advocates who are setting expectations and providing services, it'll just make things so much easier for the victims and can address their healing throughout that process and make them feel like they have a voice.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

Glad you mentioned that in terms of the post-conviction process, because we're seeing a lot of issues right now on several fronts. Firstly, I think people are being paroled earlier and without just cause or reason than we've ever seen before in our state. But in addition to that, we've had many people who had to be resentenced on first degree murder cases because you had juvenile lifers who had to be resentenced, and that was a lot of people in our state. So you have people who thought that their family member's murderer was going to be in prison for the rest of their life and now you know we have to go experience that hearing again. And then, in addition to that, what we're seeing on the federal front is just people who are being pardoned or having their sentences commuted and I would say this is true of both Democratic and Republican presidents.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

Seemingly, you know, without going through the regular process that's normally gone through, and I think, at times without even talking to the victims of these crimes or their family members. And I mean, what kind of impact does that have on a person? When you think the case is over, you think you know what their sentence is and you either are at peace with it or maybe you were part of that process, right? Maybe this was a plea that was offered in some cases and you're like, okay, I'm okay with this because I know that this individual is at least going to get a specific amount of time in prison and I can mentally prepare myself for that. And then all of a sudden, oh my God, they're out and you didn't even know about it. Can you talk a little bit, each of you, about what kind of impact that has on a crime victim or crime victim's family, and their trust and respect for the justice system?

Rebekah Snyder Cox:

So we have been doing a lot as well in this space. I've worked on some of the juvenile lifer cases with those families. The impact it has on a victim and their family you can't even really adequately explain. We had a case where their father was a corrections officer and was murdered by an inmate that he was transporting. And having to make that phone call again and ask them to come back, not only to Michigan because they had moved out of state, but to come back and speak at another sentencing hearing when he's likely going to now get out and soon right, because it's been I think at the time it had been like 35 years since he had been sentenced or something close to what his new sentence was going to look like. And so please come back to court, see him again in person, make another statement and a plea to the judge to not let him out anytime soon because of the brutality of what he did, and then to hear, "All right, he'll be out in a couple of years. Now, thanks for coming, thanks for making that trek here from Arizona, but we're going to let him out. Having to be with those families and sit there and process what that looks like now is indescribable. It really is, and it's very similar to now the parole hearings that we're getting more and more involved in. To the AG's point, we're seeing inmates be paroled at their first hearing date, their first opportunity, and victims who believed that they may be kept up until that maximum sentence. So in Michigan we are lucky enough to have the truth in sentencing laws maximum sentence. So in Michigan we are lucky enough to have the truth in sentencing laws. And so when they get sentenced allegedly, that is, you know, every day they're going to spend of that minimum sentence, of it in time, incarcerated. But now they're coming to the first parole board hearing giving these impact statements.

Rebekah Snyder Cox:

I just did this two weeks ago with the chief of our parole appeals division. We went to support a family and their pleas to please don't let him out, keep him in the emotions they're crying during this hearing and they're appealing to this parole board member to keep this man in. He's making progress. We're afraid of him and the parole board member essentially told us there's not a lot we can do. It was a two hour drive for them one way to come make this, you know, plea to a parole board member and to hear that even if we can and I don't think we can, but even if we can keep him, we'll call you back in six months to do this all over again, because the max we can really extend it as a year. Like I said, it's just indescribable the emotions associated with that and the pain because it takes them right back to the crime and when it happened and like the juvenile lifer case again, it was 30 years ago and now we're bringing it all back up and asking you to come back to court, which we thought you'd never have to do. So it's it's incredibly difficult.

Kirstin Flores:

I don't have much more to add to that. Rebekah, you said that perfectly. But, like you said, it just can bring. It brings everything back from when they first experienced the crime and but just 30 years later, it's just. They don't have their support system with them anymore. It's just, it's just really jarring.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

so um for for both of you, I'd love for you to talk about um the kinds of partnerships that we have at our offices with federal agencies, and how an erosion of those relationships or additional cutting of funding in things like VOCA and other grants could make it harder to deliver justice and support victims

Kirstin Flores:

For us, we have a lot our cases that we prosecute or even investigate are referred to us by federal agencies like the FBI or Homeland Security. The types of cases range from human trafficking, we've got some white collar fraud cases as well, and it's important for us that we have our advocates develop relationships with the advocates in those offices because if they have been receiving services from those federal agencies and the case is now at the attorney general's office, we want to make sure that there's a warm handoff, that the advocates talk to our advocates about maybe some issues that we may want to be aware of, explain what's already happened in the case, so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel with this victim, so they don't have to tell us things again necessarily.

Kirstin Flores:

e've we have some really effective relationships that we've really tried hard to build with those federal agencies and recently, I think under AG Mayes, we've really tried to focus on our tribal partners as well and make sure our staff is culturally competent to work with the victims from our tribal communities and that we're also aware of specific resources that we can provide those victims that they may not have wanted to take advantage of some of the other resources that we have in general in those cases. So having some specific resources are really important. So those partnerships are vital to ensuring victims receive their appropriate services and support.

Rebekah Snyder Cox:

Yeah, very similarly to everything you just said, especially when it comes to human trafficking cases and work, a lot of those are partners with the FBI. The AG Nessel just launched a new task force, an area that we're trying to focus on with the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People for the state of Michigan. So we are establishing a lot of those partnerships with not only the US Attorney's offices in both districts for Michigan, but also with the community partners that are funded through a lot of federal dollars to offer the counseling, the support services that are culturally honoring as well. And, in addition to that, the Operation Survivor Justice that I had mentioned earlier, which is an initiative that we've launched trying to extradite all of the sexual assault warrants that are active in Michigan for defendants who have fled the state, and so we are partnering with the US Marshals to find those people and get them back in Michigan. We meet once a week with the US Marshals to discuss how are we going to re-engage these victims.

Rebekah Snyder Cox:

I just made a phone call this week to a victim who did everything right. She reported her sexual assault in 2007. They said we're going to prosecute. They submitted the warrant. He flees. In 2017, someone calls her again. They'd have. We found a governor's warrant. It went cold. We have no idea what happened and why they didn't actually. So this week I'm calling her again saying it's us again. We mean it this time, you know, and without the help of the US Marshals we wouldn't even be able to locate these folks. We wouldn't have the partnership of how are we getting them, you know, just manually transporting them back to the state of Michigan to hold these offenders accountable. And so those relationships are vital to the work that we're doing, and again, without those partnerships, the people who suffer are the victims the ones who went to the police, did what they were supposed to by reporting, agreed to participate in the criminal justice process and have just been left in the dark of what's going on. no-transcript

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

Another thing that I think is critical that we talk about, I mean, in the Michigan Department of Attorney General during my administration we have really focused on sexual assault cases and often times cold-case sexual assault cases. Rebekah talked about our Operation Survivor Justice Initiative, but we also had I'm just going to name some of these the Larry Nassar case and all of its related cases, because it wasn't just Larry Nassar several other defendants as well, the Clergy Abuse Investigation, Boy Scouts of America Investigation, our Human Trafficking Commission, our Cold Case SAKI initiative, meaning our rape kits initiative, and that's just a handful of them, right?

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

So obviously we have tried to take sexual assault very, very seriously in our state, recognizing the impact that it has on victims. Now, all crimes have an impact on victims, let's say that goes without saying. But sexual assault can often have a different type of trauma involved in it and, as a result, it impacts a person's life differently in terms of how they're going to cope with that the rest of their life. And one of the concerns that I've had is just looking at the Trump administration and the people who have been placed into positions of great authority, all the way from the president, who we know has been found liable of sexual assault in a court of law, to Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense. The nomination, of course, of Matt Gaetz to Attorney General and the list kind of goes on and on. But what we've seen in general is really the notion that we don't care so much about sexual assault cases anymore and the message that it sends to victims, but also to everybody in law enforcement, and I wonder if I could get your thoughts on that issue.

Rebekah Snyder Cox:

I have repeatedly heard from clergy abuse victims and also our cold case sexual assault victims, that their trust in the criminal justice system is already broken a lot of the times, especially in our office.

Rebekah Snyder Cox:

We are seeing these cases years and years later.

Rebekah Snyder Cox:

Something is a lot of times gone wrong in order for them to come to us and a lot of the times and so they already have this distrust in the system.

Rebekah Snyder Cox:

There are news articles every other day about a convicted rapist who gets a probationary sentence or gets a one year of incarceration, while the victim lives with a life sentence for the rest of their lives.

Rebekah Snyder Cox:

This perpetuates that. Seeing their abusers, or someone who maybe has a similar story to what they've experienced, being victimized in these positions in the highest and most important in our nation further enforces that they shouldn't even report and that they shouldn't even go through the criminal justice system because no one is going to care is the notion that they are left with. Which, if I could again reiterate, that is why we need the community-based resources, because we as prosecutor-based victim advocates can only offer so much right? We can't be there for years after the case has ended and facilitating support groups and getting them that one-on-one counseling and therapist, because that's not what we're trained to do. We're trained to be with them in the pendency of the case and the life of the case, and so it just. It further discourages victims from participating in the criminal justice process.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

We really appreciate both of you uh being with us.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

This has been a really fascinating conversation and I think um just highlights how important victim services are, and I hope that folks in Washington DC who are making these incredibly important decisions about the federal budget will listen to this podcast, listen to you, listen to crime victims across this country who not only cannot afford and do not deserve to have these services cut, but frankly deserve to have the funding increased. I think we highlighted this earlier, but we need an increase in the funding for victim services.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

Yeah, and I think what people don't fully appreciate is that for every victim that receives those services, they're perhaps able to go on and lead a productive life where they are holding down a job, they're paying their taxes. It saves us money, the more money that we spend on victim services. So you don't care about the person from just a human rights standpoint, care about it from an economic standpoint as well. But I want to see this last thing, and that's that when we think of the criminal justice system, you know we're taught to think about prosecutors. We're taught to think about detectives and investigators. We're taught to think about judges. Nothing works in the criminal justice system without victim advocates. They are as important, if not more important, to the system than any other individuals and staffers. So I just want to thank you guys for all the hard work you do. I know that the burnout can be tremendous, but I'll speak on behalf of myself and AG Mayes, we appreciate your work so very much.

Rebekah Snyder Cox:

Thank you guys, thanks for having us on.

Kirstin Flores:

Thank you for acknowledging that. Thank you.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

And I will name this. One last thing. I know we're still on, but what did we finally get at our office, Bekah, just the last week?

Rebekah Snyder Cox:

A canine advocate!

Rebekah Snyder Cox:

We just got her. Her name's Bathia and she's five months old and she's getting picked up on Tuesday.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

Kirstin, , do we have that?

Kirstin Flores:

No, we do not.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

Do we want that?

Kirstin Flores:

Perhaps!

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

okay

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

We've been trying for years and we finally got her. And I don't know, I can't guarantee that at the end of my term she's not coming home with me.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

That's awesome.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

Congrats you guys. Thank you both for coming on with us. We appreciate you guys.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

Thank you, see you soon.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

Well, that's all the time we have for today. So remember, if you or someone you know has been a crime victim, we are here to help.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

The most important thing you can do is reach out to us, a local service provider, or to a friend.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

and we'll be back soon with another episode of Pantsuits and Lawsuits.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe to this podcast and be the first to know when new episodes drop.