Legislative Program Review and Investigations Committee
Keypoints
OFFICE OF VICTIM SERVICES (OVS)
Overall Administration
Most of the agency’s programs lack written policies and procedures.
More structured and formalized working agreements and collaboration with other victim services agencies would benefit several OVS programs.
OVS must increase monitoring efforts to periodically measure agency performance.
Victim Compensation
The Victim Compensation Program appears to be uniformly used statewide.
Almost 70% of compensation claims receive an OVS decision within a year or less.
Compensation claims seem to be approved or denied at an approximately equal rate.
Scheduling delays result in over 70% of review hearings being held more than six months after being requested.
The median total compensation award is $1,766.
OVS Direct Victim Services
Duplication exists in services and population served by the post-conviction notification programs operated by OVS and the Department of Correction.
Only about one-half of Connecticut’s criminal courts have access to a court-based advocate.
Duties and responsibilities of court-based advocates are varied and not well-defined.
OVS has not provided formalized training to court-based advocates.
Contractual Victim Services
Families rarely use more than a small portion of the grief counseling sessions available to them.
Administrative monitoring of the Homicide Outreach Program has been inadequate.
Contracted providers indicate general satisfaction with OVS grant administration.