FY 2009 Recovery Act Justice Assistance Grant 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 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 New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) will apply their FY 2009 Recovery Act Justice Assistance Grant funding towards: local law enforcement to include forensics, youth intervention, and prosecution programs; reentry services and substance abuse treatment involving judicial diversion and alternatives to incarceration programs; and statewide information technology improvements. Targeted law enforcement initiatives involve the support of the Drug Market Intervention Initiative in an effort to permanently shut down overt drug markets; gun violence reduction strategies aimed at establishing multi-agency teams in an effort to reduce firearm-related violence; and police training. Forensic program support includes essential technical training for examiners and the offset of funding for public forensic laboratory services eliminated due to state budget cuts. Youth intervention services include truancy abatement; youth mentoring in specified correctional facilities; and support services for juvenile victims of violent crime. Reentry services involve the expansion of treatment capacity, prosecution, probation and parole services, and new courtroom parts; the development of programs that support the needs of females being released and female parolees already in the community; wrap-around services for family counseling, education, and treatment for men and women transitioning from prison to the community; the electronic conversion of all inmate records; and the development of a database that captures inmate and parolee information to gauge the effectiveness of programming. Integrated justice services includes the development of disaster recovery capacity of state criminal justice databases, the improvement of the state's comprehensive sex offender management database, and the creation of a system that monitors incidences of domestic violence. DCJS anticipates that approximately 400 new jobs will be created or maintained through these efforts. Entities eligible to receive sub-recipient funding will be dependent upon their creation and implementation of programs designed to impact these priorities.

NCA/NCF