WV 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 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 West Virginia Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) of the Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety will use the JAG Recovery Act funds to support sub-grant projects that both seek to address each of the identified priority areas established by the West Virginia JAG Program Funding Committee as well as to create and/or retain jobs in West Virginia. The JAG Funding Committee identified six funding priority areas: sexual offenses; domestic violence; violent crime; substance abuse; juvenile issues; and crimes against a person with emphasis on technology crimes.

The goals of the funding priority areas are to reduce: the amount of drugs brought into and manufactured in West Virginia; illicit drug use and violence associated with drugs via prevention, interdiction, intervention, enforcement, and treatment; domestic violence by increasing the response by law enforcement and the court system, and by providing education and treatment programs for both victims and perpetrators; sexual offenses through awareness, increasing reporting, and lessening the impact of sexual offenses through better prevention, investigation, prosecution, counseling, and treatment; juvenile delinquency in West Virginia by creating an atmosphere where youth are held accountable for their actions through federal, state, and local agencies and communities developing cooperative drug, violent crime, and chronic offender prevention, intervention, enforcement, and treatment programs; and, the number of crimes against a person with emphasis on crimes associated with identity theft and white collar crime by providing education, prevention, enforcement, and treatment programs.

NCA/NCF