State of Hawaii FY 2008 Justice Assistance Grant

The Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program (JAG) allows states, tribes, and local governments to support a broad range of activities to prevent and control crime based on their own local needs and conditions. Grant funds can be used for state and local initiatives, technical assistance, training, personnel, equipment, supplies, contractual support, and information systems for criminal justice for any one or more of the following purpose areas: 1) law enforcement programs; 2) prosecution and court programs; 3) prevention and education programs; 4) corrections and community corrections programs; 5) drug treatment programs; 6) planning, evaluation, and technology improvement programs; and 7) crime victim and witness programs (other than compensation).

The Hawaii Department of the Attorney General is the State Administering Agency (SAA) for the State of Hawaii, and will receive $481,931 in Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) funds. The Department of the Attorney General will use their FY 2008 JAG funds to address the following nine major crime priority areas: offender services, violent crime, cyber crimes, property crimes, drug interdiction, criminal justice information systems, children and elderly protection, community prosecution, and public safety communications. The program narrative identifies thirteen programs that address these priority areas: substance abuse treatment, alternatives to incarceration, mental health treatment/case management, sex offender management and treatment, elder abuse, homicides, cyber crimes, property crimes, organized crime/narcotics, marijuana task force, community prosecution, drugs and other serious crimes, and criminal justice records improvement. Final funding decisions will be made by the Department of the Attorney General. The SAA will continue to use the Project Effectiveness Model (PEM) with its subgrantees. The PEM was developed with the assistance of BJA. It ensures that subgrantees' grant applications have a logical link between the problem statement, goals, objectives, project activities, budget, and performance measures. In this manner, projects can report whether, or to what extent, objectives were accomplished and which performance measures were achieved. This enables the SAA to report on the applicable performance measures as well as obtain and report information on other accomplishments.

The FY 2008 JAG administrative funds will be used by the Department of the Attorney General as follows: salaries for staff to administer the grant program; salaries for staff for research and evaluation; general agency operating expenses (equipment, supplies, postage, telephones, etc.); project monitoring and to provide training and other technical assistance to subgrantees; to cover expenses incurred by the statewide advisory body (inter-island travel, supplies, materials, etc.); expenses for planning initiatives and coordination efforts and for evaluations and assessments; to provide information to criminal justice agencies statewide and applicable entities on topics and emerging issues relevant to the JAG program; membership in relevant national organizations (e.g., National Criminal Justice Association); training, technical assistance, and resource materials (publications, reports, studies, and evaluations); consultant services; and travel expenditures (for BJA regional/national meetings, training conferences/workshops, and project monitoring.

NCA/NCF