Crime victim compensation provides financial support to victims of violent crimes in the form of reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses. Eligible costs include medical bills, mental health counseling, and funeral expenses. Currently, eligible victims must report crimes to police within seven days and cooperate fully with law enforcement. Law enforcement are additionally required to verify that claimants are in fact victims of violent crimes causing personal injury. Beginning in December of 2025, New Yorks Office of Victim Services (OVS) will implement the Fair Access to Victim Compensation Law (S.214A/A.2105A), which expands eligibility for compensation. Specifically, the new law removes police reports from the victim eligibility decision process. Victims will no longer be required to cooperate or report crimes to police, and OVS will allow non-police service providers (e.g., DV shelter advocates, medical professionals) to provide confirmation that a crime occurred. This planning grant will support background research and informational interviews as well as researcher time to identify viable data, secure data sharing/use agreements, build necessary data infrastructure, and develop the full research project plan. The outcome of the plan will be a full proposal to Arnold Ventures to support a regression-discontinuity-in-time empirical analysis of the effects of reducing barriers to receiving funds on outcomes including crime rates; crime reporting to police; victim cooperation with police; applications for crime victim compensation; and approval rates of applications for compensation.