FY 2009 Recovery Act Justice Assistance Grant Program

This grant program is authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5) (the 'Recovery Act') and by 42 U.S.C. 3751(a). The stated purposes of the Recovery Act are: to preserve and create jobs and promote economic recovery; to assist those most impacted by the recession; to provide investments needed to increase economic efficiency by spurring technological advances in science and health; to invest in transportation, environmental protection, and other infrastructure that will provide long-term economic benefits; and to stabilize state and local government budgets, in order to minimize and avoid reductions in essential services and counterproductive state and local tax increases. The Recovery Act places great emphasis on accountability and transparency in the use of taxpayer dollars.

Among other things, it creates a new Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board and a new website ' Recovery.gov ' to provide information to the public, including access to detailed information on grants and contracts made with Recovery Act funds.

The Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program funded under the Recovery Act is the primary provider of federal criminal justice funding to state and local jurisdictions. Recovery JAG funds support all components of the criminal justice system, from multi-jurisdictional drug and gang task forces to crime prevention and domestic violence programs, courts, corrections, treatment, and justice information sharing initiatives. Recovery JAG funded projects may address crime through the provision of services directly to individuals and/or communities and by improving the effectiveness and efficiency of criminal justice systems, processes, and procedures.

The city of Geneva will utilize its Fiscal Year 2009 JAG Recovery Act award in the amount of $17,267 to purchase nine wireless tablet convertible computers to be used in mobile patrol vehicles. The Geneva Police Department's mission is saving lives. The Geneva Police Department wants to provide the police and other state agencies with a high speed wireless network that could deliver numerous applications and services not available via a legacy radio based network. With this new equipment, officers in the field will have faster, more comprehensive access to a range of essential state and local resource such as photo, warrant, and license plate databases. This will allow police officers to spend more time in the field, instead of returning to the police station to offload video or information such as police reports or incident and offense reports.

NCA/NCF