FY 2009 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.

Polk County will use its Fiscal Year 2009 Recovery Act JAG award to facilitate criminal justice information sharing among the criminal justice and public safety agencies within the county. The project titled 'Countywide Crime Suppression Center,' will provide a countywide data collection point that will serve Polk County's criminal justice and public safety agencies. The overall goal for the project is to improve the capacity to share and retrieve data in order to detect, prevent, investigate, and control crime. A collaborative effort from an array of sources such as law enforcement, public safety, and other government entities will allow those agencies to have this exchange of data. This effort will allow the agencies to progress toward the unified intelligence-led policing concept of data collection, analysis, dissemination and resource allocation.

Grant funds will also be used to sustain the employment of a counselor for the Tenth Judicial Circuit Polk County Adult DUI/Drug Court (Drug Court) and create a Post-Adjudication Counselor position. These counselors will provide adult drug court participants with individual and group counseling and didactic sessions.

NCA/NCF