What is Joe Biden's position on domestic violence?

Question: What is Joe Biden's position on domestic violence?

Answer: According to USA Today, "Biden has played a major role in developing anti-crime legislation in the past 10 years." He wrote the groundbreaking bill that eventually passed as the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, a landmark anti-domestic violence law.

The Family Violence Prevention Fund credits the 1994 version of VAWA as establishing "new penalties for gender-related violence and new grant programs encouraging states to address domestic violence and sexual assault including:law enforcement and prosecution grants (STOP grants); grants to encourage arrest; rural domestic violence and child abuse enforcement grants; the National Domestic Violence Hotline; grants to battered women's shelters."

In subsequent versions, Biden pushed for the bill to be broadened in scope. When VAWA was reauthorized in 2000, the new version included authorization of $3.3 billion over five years. This including funding for STOP grants (Services and Training for Officers and Prosecutors); shelter services for battered women and their children; a grant program for civil legal services for women; supervised visitation centers; protection for battered immigrant women (the most significant improvement over the previous version); recognition of dating violence; and services for disabled and older women who are the victims of sexual and domestic violence.

VAWA was again reauthorized in 2005.