BJA FY24 Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program

The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority proposes to implement the JAG Strategic Plan 2024 – 2029 funding goals as developed through stakeholder engagement and input. The purpose of the current funding goals is to Priority 1: Address mental health and substance abuse use disorder for justice-involved persons, Priority 2: Reduce violent crime and firearm violence in Illinois communities, Priority 3: Support and protect victims and witnesses of crime, Priority 4: Support the state in criminal justice planning, data analysis, evaluation, and identification of evidence-based and informed practices, Priority 5: Update and improve technology and infrastructures for better data capture and integration, Priority 6: Support of public defense services, and Priority 7: Support for housing needs for justice-involved persons

Project activities include supporting diversion or deflection focused activities for justice-involved persons, implementing a comprehensive strategy toward violent crime and its contributing causes, incorporating victim and witness services into programming, developing a research and program evaluation agenda that prioritizes the JAG program areas and priorities outlined in the JAG Strategic Plan, incorporating technological and data collection efforts into JAG programming, supporting public defense capacity and training, and incorporating housing as part of services for justice-involved persons.

Expected outcomes include to connect justice-involved persons to mental health and substance abuse services, target underlying drivers of violence, increasing support and protection to victims and witnesses, develop stronger data analytics and collection, improving services and public safety by promoting sharing of  accurate and robust data between agencies, increase public defense, and incorporate housing as part of services for justice-involved persons.

The intended service area for JAG funding priorities is statewide. As such, the residents of Illinois, statewide, are the intended beneficiaries of the project.

Subrecipient activities for the new JAG Strategic Plan priorities have not been developed or carried out yet, as the plan was recently approved by the ICIJA Authority Board this summer 2024.