FY 2008 JAG Program

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 disparate jurisdictions of the County of Ramsey and the City of Saint Paul will utilize their Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) award funds in the amount of $139,617 to target crime in the County through the following initiatives: 1) gang identification; 2) warrant sweeps that target the most violent offenders; and 3) concentrated enforcement and surveillance activities aimed at repeat offenders. The Ramsey County Sheriff and the City of Saint Paul operate a joint narcotics effort utilizing Byrne grant funds in Ramsey County, which will be augmented with the FY 2008 JAG award. Ramsey County will also use their portion of the JAG funds ($48,935.76) to support a community corrections aide. The aide supports the overall work of the Intake Unit by performing criminal record checks on violent offenders referred by the courts of Ramsey County. Ramsey County Corrections handles corrections for all of Ramsey County including the cities of Maplewood, Roseville, and Saint Paul. The position is responsible for entering new case information into the automated database and conducting data integrity operations. The JAG award will also fund the hiring of an investigator in the Ramsey County Attorney's Office to work closely with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to insure full access to essential information from those agencies, special gang prosecutors, and all other adult and juvenile prosecutors.

The Saint Paul Police Department will use their portion of the JAG award funds ($90,681.24) to support overtime activities for the "Focusing Our Resources on Community Empowerment" (F.O.R.C.E.) Unit. The FORCE Unit is designed to combine resources in an effort to attack the scourge of drug use through a variety of strategies. High crime areas will be defined by FORCE based on numbers of resident complaints, concentration of problem property cases, computerized mapping and intelligence information generated by patrol officers and informants. Other initiatives to be undertaken by the Saint Paul Police Department are the possession and discharge of firearms; Narcotics/Special Investigation Unit (S.I.U.)/Minnesota Gang Strike Force; Neighborhood Service Area (NSA)/beat officers; Park and Recreation Center details; Vice and Prostitution details; and truancy/curfew. The City of Saint Paul Police Department will utilize the administrative portion of the JAG funds to assist in distributing the funds, monitoring the award, submitting reports including performance measures and program assessment data, and providing ongoing assistance for any sub-recipients of the funds.

NCA/NCF