The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) is a United States federal law (Title IV of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, ) signed by President Bill Clinton on September13, 1994. The act provided $1.6billion toward investigation and the prosecution of violent crimes against women, imposed automatic and mandatory restitution on those convicted, and allowed civil redress when prosecutors chose not to prosecute cases. The act also established the Office on Violence Against Women within the U.S. Department of Justice.
The bill was originally written in 1990 by Patricia Schroeder (D-CO), Louise Slaughter, (D-NY) & Barbara Boxer (D-CA) along with women from the Women's Policy Inc.
Rep. Schroeder introduced the House version, H.R. 1133 (the Violence Against Women Act of 1993). It passed the House of Representatives.
In 1994, Louise Slaughter convinced Representative Jack Brooks (D-TX) to introduce the bill and it gained support from a broad coalition of advocacy groups. The act passed through both houses of the U.S. Congress with bipartisan support in 1994; however, House Republicans attempted to cut the act's funding the following year. In the 2000 U.S. Supreme Court case United States v. Morrison, a sharply divided court struck down the VAWA provision allowing women the right to sue the accused in federal court. By a 5–4 majority, the Court overturned the provision as exceeding the federal government's powers under the Commerce Clause.
VAWA was reauthorized by bipartisan majorities in Congress in 2000 and again in December 2005. The act's 2012 renewal was opposed by conservative Republicans, who objected to extending the act's protections to same-sex couples and to provisions allowing battered undocumented immigrants to claim temporary visas, but it was reauthorized in 2013 after a long legislative battle. As a result of the United States federal government shutdown of 2018–2019, the act expired on December21, 2018. It was temporarily reinstated via a short-term spending bill on January25, 2019, but expired again on February15, 2019. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill reauthorizing VAWA in April 2019 that included new provisions protecting transgender victims and banning individuals convicted of domestic abuse from purchasing firearms. In an attempt to reach a bipartisan agreement, senators Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) led months of negotiation talks that came to a halt in November 2019. VAWA was reauthorized on March15, 2022, by President Joe Biden.
In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled 81 in United States v. Rahimi to uphold the law's provision banning people (not convicted of any crimes) from possessing firearms while a domestic violence restraining order was currently active against them.
Background
The United Nations' 1993 World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna, Austria, and the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, ratified by the UN the same year, concluded that civil society and governments have acknowledged that domestic violence is a concern of both public health policy and human rights. In the United States, according to the 2010 National Intimate Partner Sexual Violence Survey, 1 in 6 women have suffered some kind of sexual violence by their intimate partner during the course of their lives.Black, M. C. et al. The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2010 Summary Report . Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011.
As late as 1970–1990, domestic violence had been regarded as a private matter and ignored by the police. According to Joan Zorza, "throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, officers believed and were taught that domestic violence was a private matter, ill suited to public intervention." Even when arrests were made, the abusers were not deterred. The results of three studies conducted in Omaha, Charlotte, and Milwaukee indicate the futility of arrest as a sole deterrent.
The Violence Against Women Act was developed and passed as a result of extensive grassroots efforts in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Advocates for the battered women's movement included sexual assault advocates, individuals from victim services, law enforcement agencies, prosecutors' offices, the courts, and the private bar. They urged Congress to adopt significant legislation to address domestic and sexual violence.
The Violence Against Women Act established new offenses and penalties for the violation of a protection order or incidents of stalking in which an abuser crossed a state line to injure or harass another, or forced a victim to cross a state line under duress and then physically harmed the victim in the course of a violent crime.
One of the greatest successes of VAWA is its emphasis on a coordinated community response to domestic violence, sex dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking; courts, law enforcement, prosecutors, victim services, and the private bar currently work together in a coordinated effort that did not exist before at the state and local levels. VAWA also supports the work of community-based organizations which are engaged in work to end domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking, particularly those groups that provide culturally and linguistically specific services. Additionally, VAWA provides specific support for work with tribes and tribal organizations to end domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking against Native American women. In December 2022, the Violence Against Women Act was amended to include Native Hawaiian survivors of gender-based violence and Native Hawaiian organizations in grant funding.
Many grant programs authorized in VAWA have been funded by the U.S. Congress. The following grant programs, which are administered primarily through the Office on Violence Against Women in the U.S. Department of Justice, have received appropriations from Congress:
STOP Grants (State Formula Grants) Transitional Housing Grants Grants to Encourage Arrest and Enforce Protection Orders Court Training and Improvement Grants Research on Violence Against Native American Women National Tribal Sex Offender Registry Stalker Reduction Database Federal Victim Assistants Sexual Assault Services Program Services for Rural Victims Civil Legal Assistance for Victims Elder Abuse Grant Program Protections and Services for Disabled Victims Combating Abuse in Public Housing National Resource Center on Workplace Responses Violence on College Campuses Grants Safe Havens Project Engaging Men and Youth in Prevention
Debate and legal standing The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had originally expressed concerns about the act, saying that the increased penalties were rash, that the increased pretrial detention was "repugnant" to the U.S. Constitution, that the mandatory HIV testing of those only charged but not convicted was an infringement of a citizen's right to privacy, and that the edict for automatic payment of full restitution was non-judicious (see their paper: "Analysis of Major Civil Liberties Abuses in the Crime Bill Conference Report as Passed by the House and the Senate", dated September 29, 1994). In 2005, the ACLU had, however, enthusiastically supported reauthorization of VAWA on the condition that the "unconstitutional DNA provision" be removed. That provision would have allowed law enforcement to take DNA samples from arrestees or from those who had simply been stopped by police without the permission of a court.
The ACLU, in its July 27, 2005 'Letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee Regarding the Violence Against Women Act of 2005, S. 1197' stated that "VAWA is one of the most effective pieces of legislation enacted to end domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. It has dramatically improved the law enforcement response to violence against women and has provided critical services necessary to support women in their struggle to overcome abusive situations".
Some activists opposed the bill. Janice Shaw Crouse, a senior fellow at the Christian Concerned Women for America's Beverly LaHaye Institute, called the act a "boondoggle" which "ends up creating a climate of suspicion where all men are feared or viewed as violent and all women are viewed as victims". She described the act in 2012 as creating a "climate of false accusations, rush to judgment and hidden agendas" and criticized it for failing to address the factors identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as leading to violent, abusive behavior. Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly denounced VAWA as a tool to "fill feminist coffers" and argued that the act promoted "divorce, breakup of marriage and hatred of men".
In 2000, the Supreme Court of the United States held part of VAWA unconstitutional on federalism grounds in United States v. Morrison. That decision invalidated only the civil remedy provision of VAWA. The provisions providing program funding were unaffected.United States v. Morrison , 529 U.S. 598, 627; "For these reasons, we conclude that Congress' power under § 5 does not extend to the enactment of § 13981.... The judgment of the Court of Appeals is Affirmed." (at end of opinion section III)
In 2005, the reauthorization of VAWA (as HR3402) defined what population benefited under the term of "Underserved Populations" described as "Populations underserved because of geographic location, underserved racial and ethnic populations, populations underserved because of special needs (such as language barriers, disabilities, alienage status, or age) and any other population determined to be underserved by the Attorney General or by the Secretary of Health and Human Services as appropriate".Olivares, Mariela. 2014. "Battered by Law: The Political Subordination of Immigrant Women." American University Law Review 64(2):231-283 The reauthorization also "Amends the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968" to "prohibit officials from requiring sex offense victims to submit to a polygraph examination as a condition for proceeding with an investigation or prosecution of a sex offense."
In 2011, the law expired. In 2012 the law was up for reauthorization in Congress. Different versions of the legislation were passed along party lines in the Senate and House, with the Republican-sponsored House version favoring the reduction of services to undocumented immigrants and LGBT individuals. Another area of contention was the provision of the law giving Native American tribal authorities jurisdiction over sex crimes involving non-Native Americans on tribal lands. By repealing a portion of the 1978 Oliphant v. Suquamish ruling, such a provision could alter the constitutional balance between federal, state, and tribal power. Historically Congress has not allowed tribal governments to exercise criminal jurisdiction over non-tribal members. The two bills were pending reconciliation, and a final bill did not reach the president's desk before the end of the year, temporarily ending the coverage of the act after 18 years, as the 112th Congress adjourned.
2012–13 legislative battle and reauthorization