Access to victim services and supports

A multi-site survey of victims of crime in the early 2000s found that almost 90% of victim respondents had received some assistance within the criminal justice system (Prairie Research Associates Inc., 2004). However, while precise utilization rates for Black victims are not currently available due to the absence of race-disaggregated service data, research undertaken with Black victims of crime consistently indicates that fewer Black people access victim services compared to the general population (Sharpe, Aqil, et al., 2024; Sharpe, 2015). Evidence from the Sharpe et al. (2025) scoping review and CBJS community engagements (Jeffers, 2023) demonstrates that barriers are embedded within the design, eligibility structures, and operational logics of mainstream victim service systems.

These barriers do not fall evenly across all Black survivors. Black women bereaved by homicide or impacted by gun violence navigate victim service systems within a context of gendered anti-Black racism that renders their credibility routinely questioned and their access to services responsive to the intersection of racial and gender-based harm severely constrained (Maynard, 2025). Black youth, and young Black men in particular, are disproportionately represented among gun violence victims yet frequently encounter systems that treat them as suspected perpetrators rather than recognized victims, limiting their access to support from the outset (Clark, 2025; Department of Justice Canada, 2022). Black 2SLGBTQ+ survivors face compounded barriers rooted in the historical targeting of both Black and queer communities by law enforcement, producing acute institutional distrust and a near-absence of culturally affirming and identity-responsive victim services (Maynard, 2025). Where these identities intersect, as they frequently do, the barriers multiply. A Black transgender woman bereaved by homicide, for example, may simultaneously navigate racial profiling, gender-based dismissal, and the absence of any service equipped to hold the full complexity of her experience. Recognizing these distinct and overlapping needs is not a secondary consideration but a foundational requirement for any victim service framework that seeks to reach Black survivors of gun violence and homicide loss.