Technology Innovation for Public Safety: Opioid Crime Reduction

The FY 2017 Technology Innovation for Public Safety (TIPS) Addressing Precipitous Increases in Crime is designed to enable strategic information sharing across crime-fighting agencies and with identified partnerships to address specific local or regional crime problems. This program is funded under the "reserved funds" section (42 U.S.C. section 3756(b)(1)) of the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program. The "reserved funds" section provides that up to 5 percent of the funds available to carry out the JAG Program may be granted for one or more of the purposes specified at 42 U.S.C. section 3751 upon a determination that such a grant is necessary to combat, address, or otherwise respond to precipitous or extraordinary increases in crime, or in a type or types of crime. 42 U.S.C. section 3756(b)(1).

The Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services will use the BJA funds to have a full-time employee who will work with NSVSAC to develop a governance structure as well as to engage a contractor to create a secure platform for data sharing. DCJS will use an agreement developed by Virginia's health and human resources agencies as a model to develop an agreement for these localities. Correlating a variety of data will help identify specific areas of high rates of opioid use and overdoses as well as related crimes such as burglary, prescription fraud, arrests related to drug sales. In turn, this will allow law enforcement to respond more rapidly and strategically to areas of high risk for crime and identify chains of drug dealers that cross state lines. Overall, the project will provide a replicable model for a multi-locality approach to convening community sectors with unique data sets, develop a governance model and platform for data sharing and strategically use a variety of data to reduce crime. CA/NCF