Beatrice (Bea) Hanson has been named acting director of the United States Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women (OVW). Hanson replaces Susan Carbon, who has stepped down to move back to New Hampshire. Hanson serves as the liaison between the Department of Justice and federal, state, tribal, and international governments on crimes of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking.
The office has an annual budget exceeding $400 million. Hanson had been serving as principal deputy director of the office. In a a message announcing her departure after two years, Carbon cited the agency’s work on the reauthorization of the federal Violence Against Women Act as well as “our innovative homicide reduction initiative, elevating the discourse of sexual violence to a new level, the new [Uniform Crime Report] Summary Reporting System definition of rape, launching the Sexual Assault Demonstration Initiative (SADI), exploring reform for family courts wrestling with domestic violence, our expansion of work in the international arena.”