Hartsville Police Department Canine Unit and Technology Enhancement

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.

Using the Recovery JAG funds, the Hartsville Police Department will: 1) reinstate the Hartsville Police Department Canine Unit by purchasing, training, and deploying two new canine teams to enhance and increase officer safety, increase apprehension rates of violent criminals, and reduce the amount drugs available in the community through aggressive drug detection and enforcement actions; 2) purchase a purpose built storage container for evidence and ballistic panel carriers with identification panel to increase the amount of evidence storage available, increase accountability over evidence, increase investigators visibility at crime scenes, and increase the amount of time that investigators wear their body armor; and 3) purchase new laptops for incident reporting in the field, flat panel monitors to replace older CRT monitors and color laser printers for the creation of color prints for evidence in court.

NCA/NCF