2009 Recovery Act Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant

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.

Shelby County, serving as the fiscal agent for this award, will share the Recovery Act JAG funds with five disparate jurisdictions within Shelby County. Each jurisdiction's allocation will be used for activities and projects that will provide meaningful and measurable outcomes consistent with the goals of the Recovery Act. The city of Memphis will use the project funds to purchase multi-purpose vehicles, enforcement and surveillance equipment, provide overtime support for the Safeways project, support specialized training classes for law enforcement personnel, provide cash rewards to citizens for information regarding crimes, drug testing, and an adult reentry program. The city of Bartlett will use project funds to provide equipment needed to reduce the amount of time offciers spent off the street and out of their districts. The city of Germantown will use project funds to enhance the effectiveness of School Resource Officers (SRO), allowing them to stay on campus to complete and submit incident reports via in-car computers. The city of Millington will use project funds to help reduce officer and suspect injuries and increase overall officer safety through the development of a comprehensive Taser policy and training. They will also develop a comprehensive license plate recorder program, measuring the number of tags that are scanned and recoveries received. They plan to purchase the LaCie 301259U 2 terabyte storage to back up all media in the event of a fire/natural disaster, and purchase a Remington 700P rifle for the tactical response team in conjunction with developing a comprehensive policy regarding the use of force. The town of Collierville will purchase an in-car Camera video system that will reduce the amount of time officers are removed from their patrol duties. Officers will have the capability to download their in-car camera video, be able to quickly burn video footage for evidence, and establish safe archiving of video onto a reliable storage server.

NCA/NCF