Domestic Violence Services

Congress first passed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 1994. Since then, the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) has invested several billion dollars to support national, state, and local programs and to advance policies and practices to reduce domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking and increase access to safety, services, and justice for survivors. Over the same period, the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) has made similar investments, and VAWA, OVW and OVC have all supported NIJ in investing extensively in related research.

This plenary featured three significant areas of NIJ research investment that have had a tremendous impact on both the research community and the field of practice: advances in forensic DNA, police body armor standards, and place-based analyses of public safety. Each topic was explored by a collection of people representing the researcher, practitioner, policymaker, and advocacy perspectives, exploring how evidence generation resulted in changes that improved public safety and yielded more equitable criminal justice outcomes.