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On December 5, 2007, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Administrator J. Robert Flores testified before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary on reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDP Act).

In his testimony, Flores reaffirmed OJJDP's commitment to supporting programs to strengthen the juvenile justice system and combat delinquency. In discussing the JJDP Act, he focused on three key areas: the assistance OJJDP provides to States and communities to improve their juvenile justice systems, OJJDP's work on collaborative efforts to develop prevention strategies, and the emphasis OJJDP places on research and evaluation. He also briefly presented the Bush Administration's proposal for improving the juvenile justice grant programs process:

The 2008 Budget proposes consolidating the several different juvenile justice grant programs, including those authorized by the JJDP Act, into just one flexible grant, which will permit States, localities, tribes, and nonprofit service providers to compete for funding based on local needs, as well as national priorities. The new Child Safety and Juvenile Justice Program would eliminate formulas and earmarks and focus on key priorities.

Read the full testimony of Administrator Flores on the OJJDP Web site.

Also presenting testimony were Shay Bilchik, Founder and Director of the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute; Deirdre Wilson Garton, Chair of the Wisconsin Governor's Juvenile Justice Commission; Anne Marie Ambrose, Director, Bureau of Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice Services, Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare; and Richard Miranda, Chief of Police for the City of Tucson, AZ. Witness statements are available on the Web site of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

The House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Healthy Families and Communities also held hearings on the reauthorization of the JJDP Act. Witness statements and archived web casts are available online for the July 12, 2007 and September 18, 2007 hearings.