OAKLAND, Calif. — A newly-introduced federal bill aimed at expanding support for crime survivors comes as Californians for Safety and Justice receives national recognition for its work challenging punitive public safety narratives and advocating survivor-centered reforms.
The legislation, known as the Crime Survivor Support and Stability Act, was introduced this week and would create new funding streams for community-based trauma recovery programs, flexible grants for survivors and expanded research into unmet needs across the country, according to Tinisch Hollins, executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice.
Hollins, whose Oakland-based organization was recently honored by the Congressional Crime Survivors and Justice Caucus, said the measure is designed to address longstanding failures in how states support people harmed by crime.
“This bill is an opportunity for us to stabilize some funding and expand community-based trauma recovery centers and programs,” Hollins said. “Many of our survivors have started their own organizations and programs to help survivors and victims in their community.”
She said the legislation would establish “a flexible assistance survivor grant program nationwide” modeled in part on California efforts to provide direct support outside the traditional victims compensation system. It would also fund additional data collection so states can better understand and respond to the needs of survivors.
“Trauma left untreated can leave survivors vulnerable to further victimization. Breaking cycles of violence starts with supporting those directly impacted, which is why I am proud to introduce this bill and start to change the way our government supports and sees survivors,” said Congresswoman Simon. “I have worked directly with young women who survived violent crime and seen firsthand how immediate, accessible assistance, whether for transportation, medical care, or funeral expenses, means the difference between further vulnerability and true healing. This legislation will ensure survivors receive quick and direct support from trusted community-based organizations.”
For Hollins, the bill addresses a national reality in which many survivors—particularly those in marginalized communities—struggle to access help after violence.
“We know that crime survivors are underserved across the country,” Hollins said. “Many of them have a really difficult time getting access to information and resources, but specifically from black and brown and underserved communities where they experience higher rates of violence and statistically get the least amount of access to support.”
She criticized the structure of many existing compensation systems, which often reimburse survivors only after expenses are incurred and can require navigating complex rules that vary from state to state.
“Specifically with victim’s compensation, it’s a reimbursement based program,” Hollins said. “There are lots of eligibility restrictions and requirements for you to access it. It’s complicated and it’s different in each state.”
By contrast, Hollins said direct flexible grants would allow survivors to decide what they need most in moments of crisis, whether that means emergency relocation, transportation, food, child care or other urgent needs.
“The flexible cash grants really put the survivor in more in control of being able to name what their crisis is in the moment,” she said. “Hav[ing] cash that’s flexible to be able to use to deal with that.”
She gave the example of someone fleeing danger who needs immediate shelter. Traditional compensation systems may cap reimbursement rates or delay payment, while direct grants could be used immediately for whatever safe option is available.
Hollins said the proposal is especially important for rural and underserved communities where state agencies may have limited presence or capacity.
“Having local programs, especially in our rural areas and areas that are often underserved by the state when people become a victim of crime, is going to close a lot of gaps for people who need it,” she said.
Beyond the new bill, Hollins has become one of California’s most visible voices arguing that “tough-on-crime” policies frequently fail both survivors and communities. She said punishment-heavy approaches have historically expanded incarceration while doing little to provide healing, prevention or lasting safety.
“Those policies are very much based on punishment and they don’t offer any additional support for victims and survivors,” Hollins said. “Even if they’re cooperating with the process of prosecution, survivors are still left pretty much hanging on their own to figure out how to navigate the systems.”
She argued that public safety policy has too often focused on imprisonment rather than addressing root causes of violence, trauma and instability.
“Relying on incarceration just hasn’t helped improve safety,” Hollins said. “Eighty percent of the people who go into incarceration are going to come back into our communities.”
Many return home carrying untreated trauma, she said, while the conditions that contributed to harm in the first place remain unresolved. Meanwhile, governments continue spending billions on systems that have not delivered the reductions in violence communities seek.
“There’s billions of dollars that’s poured into this system, and we still have not seen the reductions in a lot of areas that we would like to see, especially around gun violence,” Hollins said.
Instead, she called for investment in prevention, youth support, mental health care and violence interruption strategies.
“We want accountability, yes, but we don’t want to do that at the expense of getting the resources for the prevention, for the mental health, for the support for victims that people agree that we need to stabilize communities,” she said.
Hollins also pointed to the legacy of the war on drugs, saying aggressive punishment policies harmed generations of families, particularly in Black and brown communities already facing disinvestment.
“We’ve already done that,” she said in reference to calls for harsher penalties. “You can look at the war on drugs and it produced generations of people who have been locked out of opportunity.”
According to Hollins, evidence shows that directing resources toward prevention and support can reduce crime more effectively than escalating punishment.
“When you put the dollars and you put the investment into prevention, into mental health, into support for young people, into gun violence prevention programs, we see dramatic reductions in crime,” she said.
Her remarks came shortly after Californians for Safety and Justice received the Suzanne McDaniel Memorial Award for Public Awareness from the Congressional Crime Survivors and Justice Caucus during National Crime Victims Rights Week in Washington, D.C.
Hollins described the honor as both personal and organizational recognition for more than a decade of advocacy.
“Yeah, it was an extremely humbling moment,” she said. “Just an incredible honor to have a national recognition for using my voice to amplify the stories of survivors, but also the incredible work that Californians for Safety and Justice has done for more than a decade.”
She credited the organization’s early leadership, particularly its decision to place survivors at the center of criminal justice reform conversations.
“If we’re going to talk about criminal justice reform, we have to center it with victims of crime, especially those from black and brown communities,” Hollins said, recounting the vision that helped shape the organization’s direction.
That approach later helped build Crime Survivors Speak, now a national network of more than 100,000 survivors advocating for reform and community safety, according to Hollins.
She also pointed to California’s expanded bereavement leave law as an example of policy born from listening to survivors. Hollins said the measure grew from testimony by mothers whose children were killed by gun violence and who were forced back to work almost immediately after their loss.
“Everyone in the state of California now has that benefit of five days of bereavement leave,” Hollins said. “But that came from listening to Survivors First.”
For Hollins, the broader message is that survivors are not only people in need of services—they are also experts whose lived experience can shape more effective policy.
“And I just feel very humbled and blessed to have had the opportunity to be recognized in that way for the work that we lead,” she said.
Follow the Vanguard on Social Media – X, Instagram and Facebook. Subscribe the Vanguard News letters. To make a tax-deductible donation, please visit davisvanguard.org/donate or give directly through ActBlue. Your support will ensure that the vital work of the Vanguard continues.
