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.

Clay County will use the Recovery Act JAG funds to enhance and improve the law enforcement system operations to include information technology, forensic evidence collection, and maintaining, processing, and enhancing criminal fraud investigations. These strategies will be implemented via the replacement of the Storage Area Network (SAN). The SAN system is a large and complex array of fiber connected data storage disks of all of the 'critical' production servers. Secondly, funds will be used to upgrade the crime lab and crime scene investigations through the purchase of forensic evidence processing equipment. Further, funds will be used to enhance the criminal investigations of fraud by training and certifying their detectives as fraud examiners. The examiners will be better equipped to detect, deter, and investigate a variety of economic crime and fraud cases.

NCA/NCF