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.

The city and county of Butte-Silver Bow will use their Recovery Act JAG award to enhance operational effectiveness through updates to aging technology. This includes purchasing nine in-car mobile computers and 11 desktop computers to allow for mobile submission of police incident reports and necessary workstations for office staff. Additionally, the grant will be used to purchase 20 wearable microphones to supplement existing in-car video camera systems and 30 digital cameras to document evidence and crime scenes. These purchases will both increase the quality of evidence gathered in the field and aid in lawful convictions. One quarter of a full-time contractual computer programmer will be funded through the grant to connect mobile computers to the existing records management system, Criminal Justice Information Network (CJIN), silent automated dispatch, and other data systems.

NCA/NCF