Section 2. Fiscal Year 2001 Programs (continued)

Support for Underserved Constituents

BJA funded a wide range of initiatives in FY 2001 to support and protect citizens historically underserved by the justice system. BJA funds provided critical assistance for youth in distressed communities, child victims, and youth prosecuted as adults. BJA funds also supported various collaborative projects to stop telemarketing fraud against the elderly and elder abuse and to reduce violent crime and victimization in Indian Country.

Initiatives for Youth

For millions of children, Boys & Girls Clubs are a safe haven from drugs and violence. Club programs and services enhance the development of boys and girls by instilling a sense of competence, usefulness, belonging, and influence.

Established in 1906, Boys & Girls Clubs of America has grown to a national network of more than 2,850 clubs, many in public housing, schools, churches, shopping malls, homeless shelters, orphanages, American Indian reservations, and U.S. military bases around the world. Today, Boys & Girls Clubs serve more than 3.3 million youth, employ more than 33,000 youth professionals, and organize the efforts of more than 200,000 volunteers.

Communities used BJA funding in FY 2001 to offer memberships to 315,000 unserved youth, establish more than 180 new clubs, create 100 new youth technology centers, and leverage more than $45 million from other funding sources. BJA funds were also used to expand the outreach of existing clubs in severely distressed communities, Indian Country, and small, rural communities. BJA funds supported a collaborative effort with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to develop technology programs that provide youth with safe access to the Internet. In South Carolina, BJA funded a comprehensive training curriculum for club professionals and staff at the Strom Thurmond Boys & Girls Club Leadership Institute at Clemson University.

BJA Funding In Focus

Youth Crime BJA supports youth crime and truancy prevention in communities across the country through the Byrne and Local Law Enforcement Block Grants programs. These initiatives offer a continuum of strategies from prevention and early intervention services for first-time juvenile offenders to graduated sanctions and incarceration for youth who commit serious gang, gun, and drug offenses. In California, the City of Stockton and the County of San Joaquin combined their LLEBG money to create a $1 million fund for projects that provide prevention and intervention services for at-risk juveniles and youthful offenders. Funding decisions are made in consultation with multiple agencies from the city and county governments. Grantees have included the San Joaquin County Probation Department, the Superior Court, the City of Stockton Police Department, and the district attorney. This approach has increased services for juvenile offenders and at-risk youth, reduced crime committed by juveniles with guns, and motivated police, schools, probation, and the community to work together. LLEBG funds in Phoenix, Arizona, support Operation AIM (Attendance Is Mandatory), a truancy prevention program that focuses on chronically absent students from ages 6 to 16. Under the program, schools send warning letters to parents or guardians after the third and fifth truancies. An additional unexcused absence results in a citation that can be dismissed after the student and a parent or guardian complete a diversion program. Counseling sessions have helped identify and address root problems that include drug and alcohol abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse. Operation AIM has grown dramatically through collaboration among nearly a dozen city and county agencies. The program began as a pilot in 1 school district in 1996 and has expanded to 14 school districts, 105 schools, and approximately 100,000 students. Participating schools have seen attendance increase. A city auditor’s study of students who completed the program as seventh graders found a 38-percent decrease in the number of truant days the following school year. In St. Louis, the Youth Crime Prevention Strategy is a collection of social service and law enforcement programs supported with LLEBG funds. The strategy involves close cooperation among city officials, the St. Louis Police Department, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the local prosecutor, and local social service agencies. Approximately one-third of the city’s LLEBG money supports social services in neighborhoods and homes; one-third funds overtime for police officers; and one-third supports building demolition projects. The strategy led to the development of critical new initiatives for youth, including curfew and truancy centers, the Youths Seeking Opportunities for Success Program, and the Gang and Gun Suppression Program. Following implementation of the strategy, the number of repeat offenders in the city’s truancy center fell from 400 to none.

BJA Funding In Focus

Internet Safety Byrne awards to the New Jersey State Police (NJSP) have provided critical resources for responding to increased criminal activity carried out via the Internet. In FY 2001, Byrne funds helped the NJSP High Technology Crimes and Investigations Unit purchase sophisticated computer equipment that aided in the investigation of more than 70 computer crime cases, resulting in 18 arrests. Additionally, Byrne funds enabled the unit to provide important information on Internet safety for law enforcement personnel, education officials, community groups, and more than 10,000 children in New Jersey school districts. These presentations addressed protecting children online, preventing and investigating identity theft and consumer fraud, and recognizing and handling terrorist threats and cyberterrorism.

BJA-funded Closed-Circuit Televising of Child Victims of Abuse (CCTV) grants were instrumental in securing portable videotape and closed-circuit television equipment that allowed the testimony of child victims at Children’s Advocacy Centers to be televised and linked to courtrooms. CCTV grants purchased document cameras and electronic whiteboards that clarify the testimony of child victims through physical evidence such as drawings. The grants also funded the creation of forensic interview rooms in Children’s Advocacy Centers.

In 2001, BJA funded five CCTV demonstration sites in Cullman, Alabama; Prescott, Arizona; Denver, Colorado; Essex, New Jersey; and Madison, Wisconsin. The grants funded training for criminal justice professionals who interview child victims. The training examined legal requirements, minimizing trauma, and a range of issues related to obtaining child victim testimony.

BJA continued to encourage states to achieve compliance with the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act, which requires that states use 10 percent of their Byrne formula funding on establishing effective systems for registering and tracking convicted sex offenders. The Wetterling Act was amended in 1996 and 1998 to require lifetime registration for certain offenders; heighten registration of sexually violent predators, federal and military offenders, and nonresident workers and students; and increase jurisdictions’ participation in the National Sex Offender Registry. More information on compliance with the Wetterling Act can be found on BJA’s web site, www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA.

Initiatives for the Elderly

It is estimated that illegal telemarketers steal at least $40 billion a year from Americans, and the consequences for victims can be devastating financially and emotionally. Fraudulent telemarketers often prey upon the elderly, using telephone, mail, and now Internet scams to rob them of their self-respect and the financial resources they need to live.

BJA supports a consortium of prevention, education, and prosecution projects working to thwart fraudulent telemarketers who prey on senior citizens. A major component of the project is the Telemarketing Fraud Training Task Force, a multiagency committee led by the National Association of Attorneys General that includes the National District Attorneys Association through the American Prosecutors Research Institute, the National White Collar Crime Center, and the American Association of Retired Persons Foundation.

The task force’s goals are to raise awareness of telemarketing fraud within the state and local prosecutorial and law enforcement communities, assess the needs of states and local communities to prevent and combat telemarketing fraud, identify how state and local law enforcement could best leverage their resources, and educate consumers about how to avoid becoming victims of telemarketing fraud.

Members of the task force train people at five BJA-funded demonstration sites that have implemented innovative telemarketing prevention and enforcement programs. In Los Angeles, the California Department of Corporations continued Operation Tough Call, a command post and clearinghouse through which local, state, and federal law enforcement and regulatory agencies coordinate enforcement efforts against fraudulent telemarketing activity. In Atlanta, the Georgia Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs created a task force to fight telemarketing fraud, as did the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office in Tampa.

The North Carolina Office of the Attorney General in Raleigh hired an investigator to expand prosecution of fraudulent telemarketing companies and to educate the public and key industries on how to identify and stop telemarketing fraud. In Montpelier, the Vermont Office of the Attorney General increased its prosecutory and investigatory resources and continued to build ties with Canada by working with the National Association of Attorneys General to establish investigative liaison relationships.

The task force also conducted training sessions in Seattle, Cleveland, and Durham, North Carolina, attended by prosecutors, investigators, and victim advocates from throughout the United States and Canada.

In Illinois, the state police continued their innovative Financial Exploitation of the Elderly Unit. Investigators with the unit serve as advocates who help report, investigate, and prosecute perpetrators of financial crimes against the elderly. They also educate elderly people on what constitutes financial abuse.

BJA funding for the National Consumers League (NCL) provided local law enforcement agencies with tools to conduct effective public education programs aimed at preventing telemarketing fraud. NCL’s primary objectives are to empower consumers to avoid victimization, encourage victims to report fraud crimes, develop and disseminate a Telemarketing Fraud Education Kit to law enforcement agencies, and participate in public forums, such as radio programs, to heighten awareness of telemarketing crime.

Initiatives for American Indian and Alaska Native Communities

American Indians suffer the highest rate of violent crime in the country, and American Indian women and children suffer alarming rates of abuse, neglect, and sexual assault. BJA grants and technical assistance projects are a vital link to federal and state resources for tribal lands which often have geographically isolated and historically neglected justice systems.

As part of the Department of Justice’s FY 2001 Indian Country Law Enforcement Initiative, BJA funding and technical assistance helped American Indian and Alaska Native communities develop, enhance, and operate tribal courts. This funding, administered under the Tribal Court Assistance Program, recognizes that tribal courts are the most important vehicle for maintaining security and restoring the community in Indian Country. They give American Indian and Alaska Native communities a forum to address specific issues such as substance abuse and domestic violence and to promote tribal sovereignty and self-government. Awards funded either new tribal courts or improvements to existing courts in areas such as case management, court personnel training, equipment acquisition, indigent defense services, and diversion programs.

Through its technical assistance program, BJA works with six national Indian constituency groups to provide training and technical assistance for tribal court personnel and to promote cooperation among tribal justice systems and federal and state judiciary systems.

The National Tribal Justice Resource Center, a project of the National American Indian Court Judges Association, provides a toll-free helpline for tribal justice systems; a clearinghouse of tribal judicial resources; a searchable database of tribal justice opinions, codes, constitutions, court rules, and tribal-state agreements; and online reference and research services though the center’s web site, www.tribalresourcecenter.org.

Other providers of training and technical assistance for BJA-funded tribal courts are the University of North Dakota, the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, and the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, which hosts training sessions for tribal prosecutors and tribal defense lawyers. In addition, Fox Valley Technical College in Wisconsin sponsors 4-day trainings for leaders in American Indian and Alaska Native communities through the Crime Analysis and Planning Strategies project. These trainings help tribal jurisdictions develop a comprehensive model for identifying crime risk and assessing its impact.

In Alaska, the Anchorage Justice Center of the University of Alaska worked with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to study the feasibility of establishing a comprehensive mental health and substance abuse treatment program for children and families in Alaska. The Anchorage Justice Center also coordinated the Alaska Native Technical Assistance and Resource Center, created to help Alaska Native villages analyze and solve local crime problems. The program trains staff from each participating village in program management and provides onsite technical support for each village.

BJA also funded the Alaska Native Justice Center (ANJC), whose mission is to address the overrepresentation of Alaska Natives in the criminal justice system. ANJC’s projects include helping local justice systems implement culturally appropriate interventions and increase Alaska Native employment.