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By Merrill Hart sonWASHINGTON (AP) - Wisconsin, 19 other states and the Virgin Islands will share $15.8 million to provide compensation and such services as rape counseling to crime victims under a grant program announced Sunday by the governmentAssistant Attorney General Lois Haight Herrington, who heads the Office of Justice Programs, said the awards were the first of their kind under a program created by Congress when it passed the Victims of Crime Act of 1984.“These funds are landmark, long overdue assistance for crime victims,” Mrs. Herrington said in a statement. “These grants will enhance state efforts to provide compensation for people whose lives have been wrenched by crime.”Wisconsin will get $285,000 of the federal funds.The money is designated for existing programs dealing with sensitive crimes, such as sexual assault, child abuse and spousal abuse, according to Gillian Lawrence, director of the Victim-Witness Support Unit in Dane County.Ms. Lawrence said ? * gislative committee chaired by ._p. Barbara Ulichny, D-Milwaukee, will hold public hearings where volunteer groups can vie for a portion of the funding. Ms. Ulichny is chairwoman of the state Victim-Witness Advisory Council.Wisconsin has received federal money in the past for victim programs, Ms. Lawrence said, but this will be a first “in such a broad range of services and on such a broad level”The money for the awards comes from the Crime Victims Fund in the Treasury. That fund is financed withfines and penalties assessed on convicted federal defendants. Mrs. Herrington said the fund can receive up to $100 million from these sources in any given budget year.To be eligible for the victims assistance grants, states or territories have to show that they had a compensation program in 1984 awarding payments to crime victims.However, to be eligible next year, the department said, a state victim compensation program must offer compensation for medical and health counseling costs, lost wages and funeral expenses.Of the 20 grants announced Sunday, the largest, which totaled more than $5.1 million, went to California. New York received $2.4 million.Anne Voight, a spokesw n m for the agency, said California received more than twice as much as New York because California had distributed roughly $14.8 million in victims assistance through its state program in 1984, compared to about $7 million in disbursements by New York.The third-largest grant, totaling $2.3 million, went to Ohio.Mrs. Herrington said there is $68 million in the 1985 Crime Victims Fund to be divided between compensation for victims and programs aimed at providing them with such services as rape crisis centers and battered women shelters.“Supported by taxpayers, the criminal justice system has spent billions of dollars to provide food, clothing, shelter, legal aid, medical and psychiatric care and job training for criminals,” she said. “Alone, the crime victim has been left to repair what the criminal has destroyed. These innocent victims are honest, hard-working citizens, and we must respond to their needs.”
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