Paintsville Drug Task Force Project

The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) solicits applications for initiatives which assist law enforcement in rural states and rural areas. The program helps rural states and rural areas to prevent and combat crime, especially drug-related crime, and provides for national support efforts, including training and technical assistance programs strategically targeted to address rural needs.

The Assistance to Rural Law Enforcement to Combat Crime and Drugs Program, administered by BJA, helps rural states and rural areas prevent and combat crime, especially drug-related crime, and provides for national support efforts, including training and technical assistance programs strategically targeted to address rural needs. In addition, priority consideration will be given to local law enforcement agencies in rural areas where the unit of local government is not eligible to receive a direct allocation from the Recovery Act Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program or received a direct allocation that was $50,000 or less. Applicants were invited to submit a proposal under any one of the following categories to: (1) combat rural crime; (2) improve rural law enforcement investigations; (3) enhance rural detention and jail operations; (4) facilitate rural justice information sharing; or (5) develop a national training and technical assistance program.

Under Category 2, the city of Paintsville, along with the Paintsville Police Department (PPD), will utilize its award to support the Paintsville Drug Task Force Project. The overall goal of the project is to improve drug crime investigations. The PPD will hire a police officer and a prosecutor for two years to focus on investigating, prosecuting, and reducing drug-related crimes. The project objectives are to investigate and clean up methamphetamine (meth) labs, as well as assist other agencies in surrounding areas with their cases; foster communication and information-sharing regarding methods of importing drugs to the area; increase communication and overall quality of the investigations and obtain a higher conviction rate; increase the overall effectiveness of drug investigations in Johnson County; focus on investigations of drug trafficking and meth producers; shut down a pain or diet clinic that freely provides prescription drugs to citizens; convict those trafficking drugs and producing meth; and promote public awareness and education to enhance the quality of the lives of citizens and criminal justice system. The police officer will work closely with other agencies, by creating a drug task force, to monitor pain clinics in the area as well as share information with other agencies about the distribution of drugs in the area. The increase in investigations will lead to an increase in criminal prosecutionsso the PPD will hire a prosecutor to secure drug case convictions. The prosecutor and police officer will also work to prevent prescription drug and meth addiction by educating all members of the community through school outreach and community forums.

CA/CF