Recovery Act JAG 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 Rolla will use the Recovery Act JAG funds to retain a community police officer VIPS (Volunteers in Police Service) assistant coordinator. The VIPS assistant coordinator is responsible for the training and supervision of citizen volunteers, as well as developing policies, procedures, and scheduling for those volunteers. VIPS volunteers currently relieve patrol officers of routine policing tasks such as vacation security checks, morning and afternoon patrols around six schools, and patrols of the city parks and bike trails. Since January of 2009, VIPS volunteers have performed 240 vacation security checks, 288 school patrols, and 175 patrols around city parks and bike paths. The position of assistant coordinator is vital to the city of Rolla in order to effectively operate, train, and expand the VIPS program, thus enabling patrol officers to focus their skills and resources on more urgent law enforcement and community needs.

NCA/NCF