Nebraska BJA FY 23 Edward Byrne Memorial JAG Program

Nebraska, along with other midwestern and western states, faces challenges given the geographic diversity of the state. Urban areas are concentrated in the east and along Interstate 80. Middle and western areas have considerably less dense populations, but experience similar issues regarding crime, drugs, and mental illness. Their approach focuses on a continuum model: Prevent – Intervene – Treat – Remove. Their approach is to address drug usage and crimes directly by funding enforcement, but also the populations prone to addiction: juveniles and those with mental illness. If they can address issues before those populations turn to drugs, they can reduce consumer bases for narcotics and then are able to concentrate enforcement actions. They seek to prevent juveniles and those with mental illness issues from committing criminal acts and entering the system. A major step in this is not only prevention and diversion education, but also addressing drug usage. This where intervention starts. Additionally, they need to keep juveniles out of the criminal justice system. By supporting interventions, we hope to divert juveniles from criminal activity, thus easing the burden on law enforcement and the judicial system. Working to address drug use issues and suppliers. Enforcement actions in hot spots can reduce supplier numbers. In working toward treatment, they are looking at mental health responses to find treatment options and reduce tendencies of this population to use narcotics to treat their illness. Lastly, they need enforcement actions to find, arrest, and prosecute those taking advantage of these at-risk populations. Leveraging data to find hot spots maximizes a return on investment in enforcement actions and improves results. These enforcement actions look different depending on whether the area is urban (hot spots) or rural (task force model). Supporting ancillary tools such as research and crime lab operations are also fundamental to maximizing the investment across the board, but especially in enforcement and prosecution.