Police Report Requirements and Racial Bias Block Sexual Assault Survivors From Compensation

Every year, adult survivors of sexual assault in the United States can apply to state crime victim compensation programs to help cover medical bills and other crime-related expenses. The programs exist precisely to support people at one of the most difficult points in their lives. Yet a University of Michigan study published in the American Journal of Public Health finds that more than 1 in 4 applicants - those who have already cleared every other hurdle to reach the application stage - are turned away.

The study, co-authored by sociologist Jeremy Levine and Sam Dickman of Planned Parenthood of Montana, examined approximately 42,000 claims from adult sexual assault survivors across 18 states between 2015 and 2023. The overall approval rate was 74.4%. But that aggregate figure obscures a pattern of unequal treatment that the researchers describe as compounding the trauma survivors have already experienced.

The Primary Reason for Rejection: No Police Verification

The single largest driver of denied claims was the absence of police verification that a crime occurred. This accounted for 34.4% of all disapproved requests - roughly 8 out of every 100 applicants.

Police reports are not always available to survivors of sexual assault for reasons that have nothing to do with whether the assault happened. Many survivors do not report to police because of fear of retaliation, distrust of law enforcement, concern about privacy, or trauma responses that make formal engagement with the justice system difficult or impossible. For those who do report, police often decline to classify the incident as a crime, leaving survivors without the verification their compensation application requires.

"What's unique for sexual assault survivors is that police often do not believe a crime actually occurred," said Levine. "Many are rejected because they cannot demonstrate that the incident occurred 'well enough' to meet the government's strict standards. These decisions rely almost entirely on police reports, and that is a significant issue."

A further 8% of denials were attributed to survivors failing to cooperate with police - declining to provide statements or participate in follow-up interviews, again often due to trauma, fear, or distrust.

Paperwork Burdens as a Secondary Barrier

More than a third of denied claims were rejected because the applicant missed part of the application or did not provide sufficient documentation of crime-related expenses. On its face, this sounds like an administrative failure. The researchers argue it represents something more structural.

Documentation requirements fall disproportionately on people who already have documented reasons to distrust the systems they are being asked to engage with. The study found that, among denied claims, Black and Indigenous women's claims were significantly less likely to be approved than white women's claims, even after accounting for age, state, and application year.

"Paperwork burdens are especially harmful for Black and Indigenous women, who have well-documented reasons to distrust law enforcement and medical institutions," Levine said. "What presents as a neutral administrative process may in fact perpetuate racial inequalities in access to critical support."

Geography as a Determinant of Justice

The study also found dramatic state-by-state variation in approval rates that has nothing to do with the nature of the crimes or the quality of the applications. In New Hampshire, the approval rate reaches 94%. In Illinois, fewer than 3 in 10 applicants receive assistance. A survivor's likelihood of receiving compensation depends substantially on which state she lives in - a function of policy choices about verification requirements and documentation standards, not evidence about what happened to her.

"A survivor's access to support shouldn't be dictated by race, bureaucracy or geography," Levine said. "Until we remove these administrative gatekeepers - starting with police verification - the system will continue to fail the people it was built to protect."

Limits of the Analysis

The study analyzed administrative claims data from 18 states, which means it captures only applicants who completed the process far enough to submit a claim. Survivors who were deterred before applying - by the documentation requirements, the requirement to involve police, or any number of other factors - are not visible in this data. The researchers note this explicitly: "By the time a survivor submits an application for help with medical bills, they have already navigated numerous hidden barriers. We are only seeing the final stage of a process that has already excluded many people."

The sample was drawn from 2015 to 2023, a period during which some states adjusted their compensation policies. State-level variation in data collection methods may also affect comparability across jurisdictions. The racial disparity findings, while consistent across state and year controls, reflect patterns in administrative decisions that the study design cannot fully explain mechanistically.

Addressing these disparities, the researchers argue, requires policy reform that removes police verification as a prerequisite for compensation and reduces documentation burdens that disproportionately affect survivors from communities with reason to distrust government institutions.