What is it?
Crime victim compensation and restitution are two types of financial payments for damages suffered by victims of a criminal offense. Crime victim compensation is typically statutorily authorized and paid by the government (often funded by fines and fees paid by convicted offenders). Restitution is court-ordered and paid by convicted offenders directly or through an asset forfeiture process. These forms of damages are distinct from civil remedies which may address both economic and non-economic damages.
NCMEC's Position:
Governments should establish victim compensation programs, proactively support pursuit of compensation and court-ordered restitution for child sexual exploitation survivors and ensure accountability for compliance with relevant compensatory mandates. Individual perpetrators—including demand-side offenders, regardless of whether they had direct contact with a victim—should be subject to liability for restitution/victim compensation as part of criminal sentencing.
Why does it matter?
Criminal conduct impacts victims and societies in a variety of ways, including physical injury, property damage, mental health impairment, and economic loss. Specific impacts in each of these categories may be long-lasting, if not permanent, and efforts to recover/achieve restoration from these damages carry additional economic costs associated with medical treatment, ongoing mental health services, lost productivity due to impacts of physical and psychological injuries, etc. Criminal justice is incomplete when it punishes an offender without addressing the harm a survivor suffers.
In criminal cases involving CSAM possession or distribution—without any direct communication or physical contact between the defendant and an identified victim—the children depicted in CSAM might erroneously not be acknowledged as crime victims.
What context is relevant?
Several international agreements have called for governments to act regarding victim compensation and restitution (referred to as “reparations” in some jurisdictions). The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has asserted that “providing redress to child victims, compensating them for the harm suffered and enabling their recovery and reintegration is as important as punishing the offenders….”
The United Nations “Convention on the Rights of the Child,” in Article 39, calls for “all appropriate measures to promote physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration” of child victims to support “health, self-respect and dignity.” The related “Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography,” in Article 9, calls for ensuring assistance to child victims and “adequate procedures to seek, without discrimination, compensation for damages from those legally responsible.”
The United Nations “Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime,” in Article 6, urges governments to provide trafficking victims “medical, psychological, and material assistance” and legal measures to allow victims to seek and obtain “compensation for damage suffered.”
The United Nations “Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law,” in Article IX, asserts, “In cases where a person, a legal person, or other entity is found liable for reparation to a victim, such party should provide reparation to the victim or compensate the State if the State has already provided reparation to the victim.”
While these agreements, as well as domestic legislation in various jurisdictions, clearly call for the promotion of victim compensation and restitution, the application of these policy objectives vary widely. Despite having ratified some or all of these agreements, many countries do not have domestic legislation ensuring the provision of material assistance to crime victims.
Some jurisdictions have relevant legislation, but these provisions have not yet been fully implemented. For example, in the United States, the Child Pornography Victims Reserve was established in 2018, but it was 2023 before the government undertook required administrative rulemaking to develop a process through which qualified victims could request compensation from the fund. Similarly, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (2000) mandates criminal restitution with trafficking convictions, yet U.S. federal courts have not fully complied with this mandate. In 2023, federal courts ordered restitution in only 46% of sex trafficking cases in which restitution was mandated under the law (18 U.S.C. § 1593).
Even where relevant laws and processes exist, access to victim compensation and restitution can be challenging. Survivors often must independently navigate unfamiliar bureaucratic systems to seek crime victim compensation. To secure restitution, they are almost entirely dependent on the discretion and professionalism of others (prosecutors and courts), who may be more focused on other objectives. When restitution is ordered, if relevant experts have not been consulted, awarded amounts might not accurately reflect the extent of harm suffered.
What does the data reveal?
According to the United Nations, several studies between 2004 and 2015 attempted to estimate the economic impacts of violence against children, including sexual abuse and exploitation. Estimates ranged from 2% of regional gross domestic product (GDP) in the Asia-Pacific region to 4.3% of global GDP.
A study published in 2018 estimated the average lifetime cost (including health care, lost productivity, child welfare, additional violence/crime, special education, and other costs) per female victims of nonfatal child sexual abuse in the United States at more than $280,000 (in 2015 dollars). The bulk of that figure is attributed to lost productivity, which is directly borne by survivors.
While these estimates support the demand for victim compensation and restitution, they also make clear an economic rationale for investments in crime prevention.
What have survivors said about it?
Survivors have expressed concerns about the availability of crime victim compensation (does such a program exist, and—if so—is it funded and able to disburse money to survivors?), barriers to accessing compensation (in some jurisdictions, a perpetrator must first be convicted), and the inability of many offenders to pay court-ordered restitution. Funding to support the survivor’s physical safety and security—a type of economic cost not often considered in restitution and compensation programs—is also a concern, particularly for survivors of CSAM offenses and those victimized by family members.
Survivors also identified time restrictions as a barrier to accessing financial support. In jurisdictions with a specified period following the commission of a crime during which a survivor is eligible to seek compensation, survivors whose abuse is not quickly discovered may be deprived of such support. In jurisdictions requiring a criminal conviction before compensation may be granted, survivor engagement in the prosecution may be impeded. Providing financial support to victims much earlier could promote prosecutorial success. Access to government-established victim compensation programs should not be conditioned on a criminal conviction.
The implementation of crime victim compensation programs often lacks a full understanding of the impacts of the crime on a child victim. Parents of one child victim noted that their child’s death by suicide—despite being directly related online child sexual exploitation—was not recognized as an event for which they were eligible to receive crime victim compensation. Considering recent trends of death by suicide among adolescent victims, crime victim compensation programs should be amended to acknowledge this reality.
Surviving has cost me upwards of $100,000 in medical and psychological damages that never should have been my responsibility—a responsibility that has cost me other opportunities such as purchasing a home, a car, an education, or general financial stability.
- Survivor
What drives opposing viewpoints?
Given the sensitive nature of, and obvious justification for, crime victim compensation and court-ordered restitution, opposition to these forms of supports are mostly based on short-term economic concerns—perhaps the government lacks the resources to fund a compensation program or an indigent defendant lacks the resources (or future earning potential) to pay restitution. Some may also suggest that economic redress is not an appropriate criminal justice system outcome and should be limited to civil actions brought by the victim, not the government.