Crime Interception and Apprehension

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 Leesburg, through the police department, will use its Recovery Act JAG award to pay for overtime for police officers. Funding is extraordinarily important because it will be used to focus on crime prevention as well as the development and implementation of dynamic approaches to crime control. The department will maintain a reactive approach to crime prevention as more emphasis is placed on proactive enforcement. Support Services (Community Services Section) would be more involved as an integral part of crime prevention to solidify its role as an important piece of the crime reduction strategy. Through building community contacts and development of trusting partnerships, its roles as an early warning tool would provide invaluable information about crime that might otherwise go unreported. To help make this happen, the department would utilize code enforcement, the citizen's academy, and the citizens patrol unit, which is a relatively new concept that was recently adopted in Leesburg. Although their comprehensive approach to crime control involves volunteers, their contributions to the strategy would have little effect on crime without additional enforcement activities that would be brought into play and paid for with these grant funds.

NCA/NCF