Over 500 victim service programs of all types now exist throughout the country. Most such programs trace their origins to the 1970's, although one of the early efforts was the passage in 1964 of New York's child abuse law. Another major development came about through the efforts of feminists whose vocal support of rape victims brought their plight to public attention and resulted in formal efforts to combat rape. The developing awareness of both child and rape victims led to a general concern for providing services to all types of crime victims. The dominant theme of all victim service programs has been recovery. Recovery may be short term or long term; may deal with problems that are physical, emotional, or financial; and may try to help victims either change or remove themselves from a damaging environment. Victim service programs can be divided into primary, secondary, and tertiary functions. Primary functions are immediate in nature and aimed at delivering a narrow range of direct services. Secondary functions are usually of lesser importance, are broad in scope, and have long range systems impact. Tertiary functions are socially unique to specific victim categories and can be short or long range. Most victim service programs are described in terms of either their host agency (as with police department programs) or their clientele (as in the case of child abuse and rape programs). They can be loosely structured, ad hoc programs or organized efforts. Many volunteer victim services have evolved outside the governmental realm in response to citizen action drives. Another program approach is the comprehensive victim service progam, such as the victim-witness assistance program and the witness advocate program. Both these models generally provide a wide range to services to all types of victims, especially victims of serious crimes. Neither the type of program structure nor the agency hosting the activity are as important as the sensitive and functional responses to victimization that significantly reduce victim suffering. Major implementation problems include defining appropriate job specifications and finding local long term funding sources. Fourteen references are appended.