For decades, lawmakers have invoked survivors to justify tougher laws and harsher sentences. When it comes to giving victims real access to justice — actual support navigating the legal system, meaningful privacy protections and enforceable remedies when system actors violate rights — change is long overdue.
Nearly 20 years ago, the Crime Victims’ Rights Act (CVRA) promised survivors a voice in the federal justice system. Those promises remain largely unfulfilled. Survivors are often still treated as bystanders to their cases — excluded from decisions, ignored in court, and left without recourse when their rights are violated by those tasked with ensuring those rights are upheld.
This failure isn’t limited to a few courtrooms. The CVRA applies in every federal court nationwide and, uniquely, to prosecutions in the District of Columbia, where federal attorneys handle most criminal cases. That means thousands of survivors nationwide depend on a law that too often delivers symbolic rights, not substantive ones.
The gap between law and reality has widened. Recent efforts to erode Rule 17 protections — which historically shielded survivors’ private therapy and medical records from needless disclosure — have left victims even more vulnerable.
I have seen how survivors are being forced to choose between seeking justice and surrendering their privacy. That’s not due process; it’s retraumatization.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s CVRA reform bill offers a long-overdue fix. It would strengthen requirements for U.S. attorneys to connect victims with qualified crime victims’ attorneys for independent counsel and rights enforcement — ensuring survivors have real advocates, not just government proxies. It would empower judges to hold prosecutors accountable when they fail to meet these obligations. And it would reaffirm that victims’ rights begin before charges are filed, closing the loophole that allowed secret plea deals like Jeffrey Epstein’s.
Critics claim these reforms could complicate prosecutions. In truth, they strengthen justice. A system that respects survivors’ dignity, privacy and voice is a system the public can trust.
Congress must make the CVRA’s promises of privacy, participation and accountability more than words on paper. For too long, survivors have been used as symbols to advance others’ agendas. It’s time to honor their experiences with action — not rhetoric.
