Crime Pays the Victim: Criminal Fines, the State, and Victim Compensation Law 1964–1984

Abstract

What mechanisms allow governments to expand into new areas of social provision and provide new benefits? Integrating theories from sociology and political science and using the case of crime victim compensation, this article shows how the political and moral meaning of policy financing tools affects state boundary expansion. In the mid-1960s, liberal politicians proposed victim compensation as a new public benefit, but conservatives resisted it as too costly and beyond governmental responsibility. Yet a few years later, a Republican-backed federal compensation bill, the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA), passed into law. What explains this puzzling turn of events? Unlike previous taxpayer-funded bills, VOCA was funded entirely from increased criminal fines. The bill’s proponents politicized the revenue source as a tax on criminals, rendering questions concerning governmental responsibility moot. Just as important, the state expanded its power to extract revenue from its denizens: victim compensation law was one of the first instances in which lawmakers created new fines to pay for a new public program.

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