Title: Annual Report to Congress: Creating A Safer America: Fiscal Year 2000 Series: Annual Report Author: Bureau of Justice Assistance Published: July 2001 Subject: statistical reports 56 pages 126, 976 bytes ---------------------------- Figures, charts, forms, and tables are not included in this ASCII plain-text file. To view this document in its entirety, download the Adobe Acrobat graphic file available from this Web site or order a print copy from BJA at 800-688-4252. ---------------------------- U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Assistance Annual Report to Congress Creating A Safer America Fiscal Year 2000 BJA Bureau of Justice Assistance ---------------------------- U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs 810 Seventh Street NW. Washington, DC 20531 John Ashcroft Attorney General Office of Justice Programs World Wide Web Home Page www.ojp.usdoj.gov Bureau of Justice Assistance World Wide Web Home Page www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA For grant and funding information contact U.S. Department of Justice Response Center 1-800-421-6770 The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime. ---------------------------- To the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate: Pursuant to The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 as amended by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (Public Law 100-690), in accordance with Section 522, I am pleased to transmit the Bureau of Justice Assistance Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2000. Respectfully submitted, Richard H. Ward III Acting Director Bureau of Justice Assistance Washington, D.C. June 2001 ---------------------------- Foreword The Bureau of Justice Assistance was created to help America's state and local governments reduce violence and restore security to our neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools, and to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our nation's criminal justice system. This Annual Report describes the funding and technical assistance BJA provided to state and local criminal justice systems in FY 2000. During FY 2000, BJA administered nearly $2 billion in funding that supported initiatives in every area of the justice system: crime prevention, community justice, law enforcement, pretrial services, prosecution and indigent defense, the courts, supervision services, technology and systems integration, and evaluation. Every day these efforts improve the security of millions of Americans. BJA's most important contribution to the safety of our nation is funding the implementation, evaluation, and replication of such efforts. Our nation's vision of justice has grown because of two compelling concepts. The first is the need to take a comprehensive approach to solving crime problems by investing in every level of the justice system. The second is the powerful idea of community justice: that we must build legitimate partnerships with the people the justice system serves, our nation's communities. Throughout this Annual Report, you will find initiatives that put the best ideas of community justice into practice by using innovative partnerships to engage communities in restoring safety to our nation's streets, workplaces, and schools. It is our hope that the programs we support each year will continue to stimulate the efforts of dedicated public servants who are looking at criminal justice in new ways. Community justice has opened the criminal justice system at every level to unprecedented opportunities for collaboration, and BJA is committed to finding the best of these new approaches, demonstrating and documenting their effectiveness, and replicating them in other communities. We welcome your comments and suggestions on how we can support your work to make your community safer. Only by working together can we meet the challenge of ensuring peace and justice for all of our citizens. Bureau of Justice Assistance ---------------------------- Contents Section I. An Overview of the Year o Building Effective Partnerships o Creating a Comprehensive Justice System o Meeting Emerging Needs o Communicating With the Field Section II. Fiscal Year 2000 Funding o Community-Based Initiatives o Addressing Violent and Serious Crimes o Support for State and Local Justice Systems o Support for Underserved Constituents o Technology Initiatives Appendixes BJA Legislative Purpose Area Descriptions o BJA Awards to States and U.S. Territories o Fiscal Year 2000 BJA Publications ---------------------------- About the Bureau of Justice Assistance The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime. BJA's mission is to provide leadership and assistance in support of local criminal justice strategies to achieve safe communities. BJA's goals are to reduce and prevent crime, violence, and drug abuse and to improve the functioning of the criminal justice system. To achieve these goals, BJA programs emphasize enhanced coordination and cooperation of federal, state, and local efforts. BJA's objectives in support of these goals are to o Encourage the development and implementation of comprehensive strategies to reduce and prevent crime and violence. o Encourage the active participation of community organizations and citizens in efforts to prevent crime, drug abuse, and violence. o Provide training and technical assistance at local, state, and national levels in support of efforts to prevent crime, drug abuse, and violence. o Reduce the availability of illegal weapons and develop strategies to address violence in our communities. o Enhance the capacity of law enforcement agencies to reduce crime. o Improve the effectiveness and efficiency of all aspects of the adjudication process, including indigent defense services. o Assist states in freeing prison space for serious and violent offenders through the design and implementation of effective correctional options for nonviolent offenders. o Enhance the ability of criminal justice agencies to access and use new information technologies. o Support evaluation of program effectiveness and dissemination of program results. BJA has four primary components: (1) the State and Local Assistance Division, which administers formula grant programs, including Byrne Formula Grants, Local Law Enforcement Block Grants, and the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program; (2) the Program Development Division, which administers Byrne Discretionary Grants and targeted funding programs; (3) the Office of Benefits, which administers the Public Safety Officers' Benefits, Denial of Federal Benefits, and Bulletproof Vest Partnership programs; and (4) the Office of Program Analysis and Communication, which provides infrastructure and support services to BJA and its constituents, including budgeting, publications support, and Web site development and maintenance. ---------------------------- BJA Programs BJA administers six types of programs: formula, discretionary, targeted, payment, benefits, and nongrant services. o Formula grants are awarded to states or local units of government in accordance with a legislatively established formula that is based, for example, on population or crime statistics. BJA formula and block grant programs include the Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Formula (Byrne Formula) Grant Program and the Local Law Enforcement Block Grants (LLEBG) Program. o Discretionary grants are those for which BJA has some flexibility in selecting topics and grantees. BJA has one discretionary program, the Byrne Discretionary Grant Program, under which most technical assistance and training grants are funded. Discretionary grants can be awarded to states, units of local government, Indian tribes and tribal organizations, individuals, educational institutions, private nonprofit organizations, and private commercial organizations. Some discretionary awards such as the Open Solicitation are competitive and make a limited amount of funds available to a number of potential recipients. o Targeted programs are those for which Congress has both designated the subject matter and limited the pool of eligible grantees. Funds are normally made through a separate line-item appropriation. BJA's targeted programs include the Regional Information Sharing Systems Program and the National White Collar Crime Center, which are noncompetitive, and the Community Prosecution and Tribal Courts programs, which are competitive within a designated grantee pool. Funds may also be earmarked under formula, discretionary, or targeted programs for special ongoing activities or recipients. Examples are the Boys & Girls Clubs of America under LLEBG and the National Citizens' Crime Prevention Campaign under the Byrne Discretionary Grant Program. o Payment programs such as the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program and the Bulletproof Vest Partnership provide funding to participating jurisdictions for designated purposes but do not involve postaward activities. o BJA-funded benefits programs include the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program and the Public Safety Officers' Educational Assistance Program. o BJA's nongrant activities include the Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program, the Denial of Federal Benefits Program, and certain federal surplus property transfer programs that provide services to jurisdictions but do not provide funding to recipients. ---------------------------- SECTION I An Overview of the Year BJA FISCAL YEAR 2000 ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS ---------------------------- Section I. An Overview of the Year The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) was created to help America's communities develop strategies to reduce victimization and restore a sense of security to their neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools. BJA provides funding and technical assistance to our nation's most powerful weapon against crime and drug use: the diligent and often unsung work of criminal justice practitioners at the state and local levels. In fiscal year (FY) 2000, BJA supported a wide range of efforts to make America safer. BJA provided this support to all 50 states, to the 5 U.S. territories, and to thousands of communities throughout the United States. BJA funding and technical assistance are a lifeline for many of these communities, some small and rural, others large and urban, which lack the resources to adequately fund every component of an effective criminal justice system. BJA's two largest grant programs--the Byrne Memorial Grant Program and the Local Law Enforcement Block Grants (LLEBG) Program--are guided by the principle that federal dollars should support initiatives that work and that are backed by the communities they serve. Both programs emphasize local decisionmaking, and they have had a significant impact on the safety of millions of Americans by allowing states and local communities to craft their own responses to local crime and drug problems. In FY 2000, BJA administered $500 million in Byrne formula grants and $52 million in Byrne discretionary awards. Formula funds were awarded to the states, which then made subawards to state and local units of government. Discretionary funds were awarded directly to state and local jurisdictions, Indian tribes, individual criminal justice agencies, and private, nonprofit organizations. BJA also administered almost $503 million in LLEBG funding in FY 2000, making awards to more than 3,100 jurisdictions in the 50 states and 5 U.S. territories. A third major program, the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP), is the first federal effort to assist states and local governments with the cost of incarcerating undocumented criminal aliens. Including FY 2000 payments, $2.8 billion has been distributed to nearly 300 state agencies, sheriffs, and local jails through SCAAP. Without this federal assistance, the financial burden of housing illegal criminal aliens would consume a significant amount of local justice resources. BJA continued to use the Internet in FY 2000 to revolutionize how we work with state and local grant recipients. BJA's electronic grant application and award system for the LLEBG Program provided online all the information applicants need to apply for LLEBG funding. In FY 2000, the system allowed BJA to award more than 3,000 grants in less than 2 months without using one piece of paper. The system dramatically enhanced BJA's ability to collect, analyze, and disseminate information on how jurisdictions spend LLEBG funds, and it improved BJA's outreach to potentially eligible jurisdictions. An important long-term benefit of this new technology is that BJA grant managers spend less time moving paperwork and more time helping states and local communities identify pressing criminal justice issues and develop strategies to address those issues. Building Effective Partnerships An important reason our nation has succeeded in reducing crime, violence, and illegal drug use is that citizens and criminal justice agencies at all levels of government are working together. The past decade has shown the power of partnership--between justice agencies themselves and between justice agencies and the communities they serve--to revitalize communities weary of violence and drugs. Community-based partnerships funded by BJA in FY 2000 demonstrated that strategic community planning works because it coordinates federal and state resources and integrates a wide range of responses to complex problems. For the first time in many communities, the criminal justice system includes youth and gang initiatives, dispute resolution and community prosecution programs, community courts, and diversion programs for first-time juvenile offenders and mentally ill individuals. BJA worked closely with local criminal justice practitioners in FY 2000 to put the concept of community justice into practice at every stage of the criminal justice process. Police-community partnerships have had a dramatic impact in neighborhoods throughout the country, and BJA continued its focus on building community partnerships with prosecutors, public defenders, and courts. To help these agencies, BJA supports long-term strategies to build community prosecution programs and community courts through which a community's police officers, prosecutors, public defenders, elected officials, and community leaders work together to improve public safety. These initiatives are finding innovative ways to link local justice agencies working in crime prevention, prosecution, and adjudication to the community, combining treatment and sanctions that restore the community. A federal-local partnership, the Bulletproof Vest Partnership (BVP), helped save the lives of our nation's police officers by allowing police departments to purchase bulletproof and stab-resistant vests through a special Web site. The program, which covers up to 50 percent of the cost of each vest, is administered entirely through the Internet by BJA and four federal partners: the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), the Office of Justice Programs (OJP), the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). In fiscal years 1999 and 2000, BVP awards allowed 5,300 state, local, and tribal jurisdictions to purchase more than 180,000 vests. Many of these jurisdictions are small, rural departments that lack the resources to equip their officers with these important safety devices. Creating a Comprehensive Justice System Many of the initiatives BJA supports help the justice system operate more cohesively as offenders, victims, witnesses, and other participants pass through its components. BJA funded more than 100 training and technical assistance projects in FY 2000. These projects provided vital support to practitioners working to improve community crime prevention, law enforcement, adjudication, corrections and supervision, Native American and Alaska Native justice systems, and technology. An often overlooked but critical responsibility of BJA's State and Local Assistance Division (SLAD) is funding training and technical assistance for state and local recipients of Byrne and LLEBG funds. SLAD funds technical assistance in three broad areas: development of grantees' grant administration capabilities, outreach to remote jurisdictions and to Indian Country, and strategic use of information technology. These priority areas were chosen in response to training needs reported by LLEBG and Byrne grantees. A truly comprehensive justice system will exist only when every component of the system has the ability to share vital information. In FY 2000, BJA continued its substantial investment in technology initiatives that are helping state and local jurisdictions complete this important process and preventing the further development of overlapping, incompatible information systems. Since 1992, a set-aside under the Byrne Formula Grant Program has funneled in excess of $230 million into improving the criminal history records capabilities of states. In addition, $100 million has been provided to NIJ under LLEBG for research into new technologies, and nearly a fourth of all new BJA-funded technical assistance projects have involved information systems integration or improvement. One of BJA's most important investments in technology-related assistance is its support of the Office of Justice Programs Information Technology Integration Initiative. Through this initiative, BJA provides funding to a consortium of technical assistance grantees to help state and local governments implement information technologies that operate both within and outside individual state, local, and federal information networks. The consortium's first priority was surveying the state of information system integration across the country, with an emphasis on best practices and lessons learned. The grantees are now undertaking a variety of projects to disseminate critical integration-related knowledge to the field. Other important technology initiatives supported in FY 2000 included the Strategic Information Technology Center, which helped state and local criminal justice practitioners understand and apply information technology within the criminal justice system; the Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS), a network of regional centers that share intelligence on criminal organizations operating across jurisdictional lines; and the National White Collar Crime Center (NWCCC), which provides a national support system for agencies in their fight against cybercrime and economic crime. Finally, BJA's efforts to create a comprehensive justice system included giving state and local jurisdictions the evaluation tools and expertise necessary to ensure that their efforts are producing genuine results. BJA supports state efforts to evaluate the performance and outcomes of their programs through the Byrne Evaluation Partnership Program. The Electronic Roadmap for Evaluation, an interactive site on the BJA Web page, provides practitioners with step-by-step instructions for planning, designing, and conducting evaluations of state and local criminal justice programs. BJA also collaborates with NIJ to ensure that several major BJA initiatives are rigorously evaluated. Meeting Emerging Needs As we become more responsive to local crime problems, we become more aware of emerging needs in local justice systems. An important BJA goal is to ensure that emerging needs are addressed in state and local criminal justice planning, discretionary funding, and training and technical assistance. In FY 2000, these special issues included school safety, diversity training for law enforcement, indigent and mentally ill defendants, elderly victims of fraud and abuse, victims of hate crimes and racial profiling, tribal and rural justice systems, and the families of public safety officers killed in the line of duty. Among the many national, state, and local initiatives BJA supported in FY 2000 to deliver more assistance and resources to these areas of concern were o Nearly 400 local school safety projects, funded with $22 million in LLEBG funds, and 700 local LLEBG-funded projects addressing youth gangs. o The National Center for Rural Law Enforcement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, which received funds to serve as a national clearinghouse on school violence research. o Projects to improve security in school districts in Columbine and Denver, Colorado. o Cultural awareness and diversity training for police and community officials in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. o Indigent defense programs in Arizona, Georgia, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas. o Mental health courts in Seattle, Washington, and Broward County, Florida. o Training and technical assistance for prosecutors and law enforcement agencies to stop telemarketing fraud and other victimization of elderly people. o The Simon Wiesenthal Center's National Institutes Against Hate Crimes in Los Angeles and other promising demonstration programs to reduce hate crime and bias-motivated speech and harassment on high school and college campuses. o A resource guide on racial profiling data collection. o The Correctional Options Technical Assistance Program, which works with correctional facilities on a wide range of issues surrounding alternatives to detention. o The National Clearinghouse on Women Offenders, which provides information and technical assistance regarding issues related to women in detention and women offenders' reentry into society. o The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Indian Country Law Enforcement Initiative, through which BJA helps American Indian and Alaska Native communities develop, enhance, and operate tribal courts. o The Alaska Native Technical Assistance and Resource Center, which helps Alaska Native villages analyze and solve local crime problems. The Public Safety Officers' Benefits (PSOB) Program, administered by BJA's Benefits Office, was created in 1977 to provide a one-time financial benefit to families of federal, state, and local public safety officers killed in the line of duty. PSOB's scope has since broadened to cover officers with permanently disabling injuries and educational benefits for surviving family members. In FY 2000, PSOB responded to approximately 300 claims, awarding nearly $30 million in benefits to surviving families. The information collected through the program on line of duty deaths is used to enhance public safety officer training. PSOB also provides assistance to public safety officers through two national organizations, the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and Concerns of Police Survivors. The former presented an innovative training course for fire chiefs, "Taking Care of Our Own," to help them prepare for the trauma associated with line-of-duty deaths. More than 800 survivors and 125 honor guards from across the nation participated in the foundation's annual memorial services held in Emmitsburg, Maryland, in October 2000. Concerns of Police Survivors provides services to families of fallen officers and cosponsors National Police Week, which includes events held each May in Washington, D.C. In 2000, more than 280 police officers killed in the line of duty were honored that week. Several hundred local law enforcement officials participated in regional trainings entitled "The Trauma of Law Enforcement Death," and family members of slain officers participated in workshops and seminars devoted to issues surrounding grief and recovery. Communicating With the Field BJA's FY 2000 Regional Conference Series with grantees and constituents, Justice in the New Millennium, was held in April, May, and June in New Orleans, Cleveland, Miami, Palm Springs, and Portland, Maine. Speakers and workshops at the meetings examined challenges for criminal justice practitioners in the next decade, including partnership building, public and private resource leveraging, strategic planning, school safety, use of the Internet and information technology to fight crime, community and mental health courts, management of youthful offenders, domestic security, hate crimes and racial profiling, diversity in the justice system, rural crime and methamphetamine trafficking, and crime in Native American and Alaska Native communities. BJA conducted four National Policy Briefings in FY 2000 for state administrative agency directors, who are appointed by each state's governor to establish priorities for the state's criminal justice policy agenda. The briefings discussed offenders with mental illness, incarcerated women, police and community relations, and combating hate crimes. BJA's information dissemination efforts encompass traditional publishing, electronic dissemination through the BJA and National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Web sites, and media public education campaigns. In FY 2000, BJA distributed more than 340,000 monographs, special reports, bulletins, facts sheets, and application kits through targeted mailings, constituent requests, conferences, and training sessions. Publications on the BJA Web site were viewed more than 520,000 times. ---------------------------- SECTION II Fiscal Year 2000 Funding BJA FISCAL YEAR 2000 ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS ---------------------------- Section II. Fiscal Year 2000 Funding Community-Based Initiatives BJA's mission to reduce crime and improve the criminal justice system begins in the community. We have learned that no one program or agency can make our streets and schools safer. The most powerful weapon against crime and violence is focused collaboration among community residents, faith-based organizations, schools, businesses, and the criminal justice system on specific local problems. To be effective, community-based partnerships must develop and support comprehensive crime prevention strategies that give community members a real opportunity to solve problems and participate in the justice system. Community Prosecution A priority for BJA in FY 2000 was funding the creation and enhancement of community prosecution initiatives across the country. Community prosecution is a key element of community justice, a concept rooted in the desire to involve citizens in crime prevention. Community prosecutors can be more effective than traditional prosecution efforts when dealing with low-level, quality-of-life crime because they emphasize community-focused crime strategies, working directly with a neighborhood's residents, citizen groups, and businesses. The first recognizable community prosecution program began operating in Manhattan, New York, in 1985. More than two dozen jurisdictions have since begun city- or neighborhood-focused prosecution efforts, many funded by BJA. In November 2000, BJA announced that it would award community prosecution grants to an additional 61 communities. ---------------------------- BJA Funding in Focus: Problem-Solving Prosecutors in Portland and Denver Community prosecution programs in Portland, Oregon, and Denver, Colorado, have emerged as models for community prosecution efforts nationwide. They will serve as leadership sites, providing training and other assistance for new community prosecution sites. Portland, Oregon Like most prosecutors, Portland District Attorney Michael Schrunk came into office ready to do battle with the country's most serious criminals. "I always thought if I took care of murders, rapes, and robberies, I'd be a hero," Schrunk says. Schrunk learned, however, that his constituents wanted him to pay as much attention to quality-of-life problems as he did to crimes that made the papers. The Portland police had created a community policing initiative to address quality-of-life crimes, but the district attorney's office believed it had an important role to play as well. According to Wayne Pearson, Multnomah County's first neighborhood district attorney, the police and community formed two components of a successful strategy, but they were missing a third leg--a prosecutor's legal expertise. Portland's Neighborhood District Attorney program was launched in 1990 in the downtown Lloyd District, where business leaders were worried that quality-of-life crimes jeopardized efforts to convert the area into a major commercial center. Pearson met frequently with the district's stakeholders-- business leaders, store owners, residents, and individuals who worked in the area. They told him they were most concerned with the low-level offenses that gave the Lloyd District its seedy reputation: public drinking, prostitution, vandalism, public urination, littering, and car thefts. Pearson involved the district attorney's office in several successful initiatives that first year, which led Schrunk to set up the county's second neighborhood prosecutor in a residential area. Today, seven neighborhood prosecutors serve Multnomah County. For Schrunk, the program's biggest achievement has been its ability to turn county residents into "full-service citizens" and get them to work with partners in the criminal justice system. The next step, Schrunk says, is the creation of community courts, where judges will pay more attention to low-level crime. "I'd like to see problem solving involving the commercial and residential citizens of a neighborhood. I'd push for more court sessions held in community centers, dealing on the civil side with neighborhood and landlord-tenant disputes, and on the criminal side with restitution, restorative justice, and having offenders pay back the community." Denver, Colorado Budget constraints in Denver made it impossible to assign prosecutors to neighborhoods full time. Instead, Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter came up with a plan to send prosecutors into the community after their workday to hear citizens' complaints and work with them to implement new initiatives. Why would harried assistant prosecutors take on this extra workload? Gloria Rivera, who was assigned the neighborhood of Globeville, and the seven other community prosecutors took the assignment "because one of the things we see in prosecution is that citizen distrust of the system leads to lack of cooperation and victims saying 'the system cares more about the defendant than my rights.'" Rivera and her partner invited the community to monthly meetings and were met with heavy criticism of law enforcement and government in general. Over the following months, the prosecutors developed a sense of the community's concerns and discovered the large role that quality-of-life problems played in residents' perceptions of safety. To send a signal to community residents that the district attorney's office was serious about their concerns, Ritter hired a full-time community prosecution coordinator. She was instrumental in moving the community to the "fixing it" stage by creating the Globeville Community Justice Council, a 30-person committee of community stakeholders that includes residents, neighborhood youth, business leaders, community center directors, faith leaders, school teachers, community police officers, and community prosecutors. As council members met and talked, they found that lack of parental supervision of youth was Globeville's top quality-of-life concern. Out of this concern for neighborhood youth arose a coordinated, multistrategy response made up of community accountability boards, youth empowerment teams, a Globeville Community Day, and constant collaboration between agencies and organizations that serve youth in the community. ---------------------------- Community Courts A second vital component of community justice is the community court. In January 1998, New York City's Midtown Community Court was the only community court in the United States. Midtown Community Court succeeded by asking a new set of questions about the role of the court in a community's daily life. What can a court do to solve neighborhood problems? What can courts bring to the table beyond their coercive power and symbolic presence? And what roles can community residents, businesses, and service providers play in improving justice? By March 2000, nearly a dozen community courts had opened across the country in cities in Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Tennessee, and Texas. Another 13 communities, many using BJA grants, are planning to open courts in the near future. The courts that followed Midtown are answering these questions in different ways, but they also seek a set of common, important goals. All have implemented a new way of doing business that imposes immediate, meaningful sanctions on offenders, truly engages the community, and helps offenders address problems that are at the root of their criminal behavior. BJA funds the Center for Court Innovation to assist these courts with publications, onsite training, and the center's innovative Web site, www.communityjustice.org. ---------------------------- BJA Funding in Focus: Red Hook Community Justice Center The Red Hook Community Justice Center opened on June 1, 2000, in Brooklyn, New York. Housed in a renovated Catholic school, the center adapted the model of the Midtown Community Court, which combats quality-of-life crime through community sentences and referrals to social services, to Red Hook's youth crime, domestic violence, and housing issues. The product of a unique partnership between the New York State Unified Court System, the City of New York, and the U.S. Department of Justice, the Justice Center is a resource for the entire community. Services such as job training, drug treatment, adult education, and mediation and health services are available to all community members. In addition, the Justice Center houses the Red Hook Youth Court, a peer court for teenagers, and the Public Safety Corps, a community service program that puts 50 local residents to work cleaning parks, fixing broken windows, and painting over graffiti. Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes said the Justice Center reminded him of the magistrate courts that dotted Brooklyn before the courts were centralized almost four decades ago. "Their value was that they were available to the public they served. People could drop in and see justice in action," Hynes said. With the opening of the Red Hook Community Justice Center, he said, "We begin to return justice to the neighborhood." ---------------------------- National Crime Prevention Initiatives Although many law enforcement agencies have become proficient at responding to crime, few work together to systematically understand a community's crime problems and develop a strategic plan to reduce them. The Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative (SACSI) helps U.S. Attorneys, collaborating with federal, state, and local criminal justice agencies, use information-driven problem solving to reduce crime. SACSI was first implemented in five pilot cities: New Haven, Connecticut; Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Portland, Oregon; Memphis, Tennessee; and Indianapolis, Indiana. The initiative has since expanded to five additional cities: Albuquerque, Atlanta, Detroit, Rochester, and St. Louis. These cities are employing the principles of SACSI to reduce gun violence. DOJ supports SACSI through the combined efforts of many of its components, including BJA, NIJ, BJS, the COPS Office, the Office of the Associate Attorney General, Criminal Division, and the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys. One of BJA's most successful community-focused initiatives is National Night Out (NNO). NNO provides information, educational materials, and technical assistance to communities to develop yearlong community-police partnerships that reduce crime, violence, and substance abuse. These partnerships have proved to be one of the nation's most effective vehicles for fighting crime, violence, and illegal drug use. Because of NNO and other crime watch groups across the country, we know that where there is trust among neighbors combined with a willingness to get involved, there is less crime. National Night Out makes people aware of crime prevention and helps build police-community partnerships through a multitude of events, including block parties, cookouts, parades, and activities for youth. NNO has also played a major role in overcoming cultural barriers such as race, language, and religion that keep neighbors apart in cities with diverse populations. Participation in these events has increased dramatically from the 2.5 million people in 400 communities who celebrated the first NNO in 1984. National Night Out 2000 brought together a record 32.5 million people in 9,620 communities worldwide, celebrating yearlong partnerships with police that have united their neighborhoods. The BJA-funded National Citizens' Crime Prevention Campaign is one of the leading catalysts for citizen action to fight crime and fear of crime in the United States. It was launched in 1979 to change the public attitude that crime is inevitable and preventing it solely the job of the police. A cooperative effort of the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC), BJA, the Crime Prevention Coalition of America, and the Ad Council, Inc., the campaign's award-winning public service ads challenge Americans to invest in youth and get involved in combating violence, crime, and illegal drug use. NCPC advertising appears on television, radio, billboards, and posters; in newspapers and magazines; and now through Web site banners in cyberspace. In 1998, the most recent year for which figures were available, the campaign reached more than 155 million households and raised an unprecedented $128 million in donated broadcast and print media support. NCPC media campaigns generate approximately 25,000 calls per year to the campaign's adult toll-free number and 22,000 per year to its teen toll-free number. To make sure this message generates action, the campaign sponsors community-based crime, violence, and drug abuse prevention efforts and conducts training for national, state, and local crime and drug prevention leaders, community organizations and residents, youth groups, spiritual institutions, law enforcement officers, and others. NCPC's Speaking Out for Youth and Justice: A Kit for Community Leaders, targets leaders who seek to mobilize their communities to reduce crime by and against youth. The kit contains fact sheets, transparency masters, and a video that addresses 17 youth crime prevention and juvenile justice topics. Local leaders use these materials to support presentations on specific topics such as reducing juvenile crime, building collaborations to benefit youth, youth and guns, holding juvenile offenders accountable, community policing and youth, and mentoring. In 1993, the Chicago Area Project (CAP) partnered with NCPC to establish the Youth As Resources program in Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes, a high-crime public housing community. Youth As Resources was created to engage youth in solving community problems and leading community service activities. In 2000, a BJA grant to CAP allowed the project to conduct a youth-led violence prevention public education campaign, evaluate the Chicago Youth As Resources model, and develop a guide for other high-crime public housing areas seeking a new approach to engage youth. Through its partnership with the National Training and Information Center (NTIC), BJA has helped community groups get organized and rehabilitate their neighborhoods. Nationwide, NTIC works with more than 350 community institutions, including neighborhood and faith-based groups, senior citizen and disabled rights groups, and farm organizations. Collaborating with NTIC, they improve their community's quality of life by combating crime, drugs, and violence; renovating schools; replacing substandard housing; and establishing financial credibility with banking institutions. All of the groups supported by NTIC begin by mobilizing residents to improve living conditions in their neighborhood. By focusing on concrete, easily understood quality-of-life issues such as providing afterschool recreation for youth or pursuing absentee landlords to improve housing conditions, they seek to combat the community's larger problems. In Wichita, Kansas, for example, the Sunflower Community Action group worked with residents to identify rundown properties in high-crime areas. Through a series of public meetings that drew the spotlight of the local media, the group pressured landlords to make urgently needed repairs worth more than $100,000. Addressing Violent and Serious Crimes Although overall crime rates have fallen in recent years, the level of violence, particularly violence committed by and against youth, remains high in too many communities. In FY 2000, BJA continued its commitment to protect every citizen's right to live, work, and go to school in a secure environment by helping state and local law enforcement agencies combat illegal firearms trafficking, drugs, gangs, domestic terrorism, and hate crimes. Gun Violence Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) statistics indicate that nearly 70 percent of all homicides involve firearms and that firearms were used in 30 percent of all murders, robberies, and aggravated assaults committed in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, firearms-related violence is second only to fatalities involving automobiles as the nation's leading cause of injury-related death. In 1993, BJA created the Firearms Trafficking Program to reduce firearms-related violence in the United States, ultimately funding demonstration programs in California, Indiana, Louisiana, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. The program emphasized strategies that address unscrupulous gun dealers, stolen weapons, and illegal firearms purchasers and suppliers. A monograph by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) that examines the effectiveness of these strategies, Reducing Illegal Firearms Trafficking: Promising Practices and Lessons Learned, was published by BJA in FY 2000 and distributed to law enforcement agencies nationwide. In addition, PERF's Guns-First Training Program educated state and local police officers about federal and state firearms statutes, provided strategies to improve investigations of firearms offenses, and informed police of the value of collecting and sharing information that can assist in the interdiction of illicit firearms. BJA also supported technical assistance through the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) to help officers combat illegal firearms trafficking. This project addressed many key elements of investigating and interrupting gun trafficking, including trafficking patterns, interdiction, ballistic and weapon tracing, and federal/local cooperation to reduce illegal weapons traffic. Methamphetamine Investigation and Cleanup To address a wide array of issues and environmental regulations surrounding the investigation and cleanup of clandestine methamphetamine labs, BJA administered a substantial portion of DOJ's FY 2000 Methamphetamine/Drug Hot Spots Program in cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and OJP's COPS Office. BJA awarded 18 grants through the program to high-impact locations that Congress identified for funding. To ensure that the investigation and cleanup of methamphetamine labs does not violate federal environmental and occupational safety laws, BJA, in cooperation with DEA and the COPS Office, devoted substantial effort to explaining the requirements for compliance to law enforcement agencies and providing guidance for programmatic remedies. Further, BJA, in consultation with DEA, developed and published a program-level environmental assessment with mitigation measures that can be used by any agency undertaking methamphetamine investigation. Additionally, BJA funded the Institute for Intergovernmental Research and the National Sheriffs' Association to sponsor training for law enforcement agencies on the hazards officers face when they encounter clandestine drug laboratories. Circle Solutions worked to update training on clandestine lab enforcement and cleanup issues, with special emphasis on the needs of agencies in High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas. ---------------------------- BJA Funding in Focus: The Safe Gun Storage Campaign Every year, approximately 4,200 American children under age 19 die from gunshot injuries. At least three times that number are critically wounded. Many of these tragedies could be averted by ensuring that guns are not accessible to children. The Safe Gun Storage Campaign seeks to reduce these deaths and injuries through public service announcements (PSAs) that encourage the 44 million Americans who own guns to store them safely and responsibly. The PSAs were researched and developed through the partnership of BJA, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), NCPC, and the ad agency Foote, Cone & Belding. In the campaign's first year, three television ads, three radio spots, print ads for newspapers and magazines, and formats for out-of-home advertising were produced. These spots and print ads have been disseminated to television, radio, and print media outlets across the country. Additionally, television and radio kits were sent to 93 U.S. Attorneys and to more than 600 interested organizations. ---------------------------- Illegal Drug Trafficking, Gangs, and Domestic Terrorism The Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Area Drug Enforcement Task Force continued its efforts to combat violent drug distribution networks in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. The illegal drug trade and high drug-related homicide rate in the area is fueled by the District of Columbia's proximity to New York City and strategic location on the Interstate 95 corridor. The District recorded a 12-percent decline in homicides in 1999, and a 42-percent decline over the past 3 years, but its homicide rate in 1999 is still more than twice the rate of other American cities of similar size. During FY 2000, the task force supported regional gang tracking and airport interdiction systems that identified and prosecuted major illegal drug operations in the District, Northern Virginia, and Southern Maryland. The Community Law Enforcement and Recovery (CLEAR) program brings together key city and county criminal justice agencies to target, arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate gang members in Los Angeles. Currently, there are 1,300 street gangs and 150,000 gang members in Los Angeles County and 408 gangs with more than 58,000 gang members in the City of Los Angeles. In 1998, there were 7,000 gang-related crimes, including 175 murders and 357 attempted murders. The program's goals are to reduce offenses within identified gang areas, work with landlords and tenants to abate or reduce gang nuisance activities, successfully prosecute gang members, increase homicide resolution rates in targeted areas, enforce truancy and curfew laws against gang members and at-risk youth, and establish the groundwork for self-sustaining community coalitions. CLEAR members also coordinate with local gang intervention and prevention programs to redirect youth away from gang affiliation. In the primary areas targeted by the program, gang crime has declined 20 percent. Operation Streetsweeper, a partnership between New Hampshire's state and local law enforcement agencies, jointly targets drug and gang activities. The program began on a smaller scale in the City of Manchester, using Byrne formula funding, and has expanded statewide with the goal of increasing the use, effectiveness, and capacity of the state police. To combat the threat of terrorism, BJA supported the State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training (SLATT) program, the only ongoing training and technical assistance counter-terrorism initiative specifically designed for state and local law enforcement and prosecution authorities. Working in close cooperation with the FBI and its National Security Division Training Unit, the SLATT program delivers specialized executive, investigative, intelligence, and officer safety training, with an emphasis on less populated jurisdictions. Hate Crimes The nation continues to suffer an alarming number of hate crimes that traumatize both victims and their communities. To address this difficult issue, BJA has made it a priority to help police and prosecutors prevent hate crimes and respond more effectively when they do occur. In FY 2000, BJA funded three demonstration programs that are among the nation's most promising models for confronting and reducing bias-motivated acts. These programs demonstrate that the most effective approaches include coordination among all components of the criminal justice system, focused efforts to address the needs of the victims of hate crimes, diversion programs for youth, and activities that encourage tolerance in our schools. o The Simon Wiesenthal Center's National Institutes Against Hate Crimes bring together teams of law enforcement professionals in an intensive 4-day course at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. By the end of the course, each team has developed a comprehensive, coordinated plan for addressing hate crimes in its community. ---------------------------- BJA Funding in Focus: Violent Crime in Rural Communities Rural society is changing. Not too long ago, the images most often associated with rural communities were farming, traditional families, extended family networks, unlocked doors, safe streets, a sense of tradition and continuity, and neighbors who watched out for each other. Today, economic and social changes have disrupted rural areas' social networks, and the informal control exerted by community members as a means of preserving safety has given way to more formal institutions and services. Violent crime in rural communities increased 53 percent from 1983 to 1997, and although crime rates in rural communities still are not nearly as high as rates in urban areas, crime in many rural areas continues to rise. Some rural areas have become increasingly vulnerable to crime and violence as residents have either left in search of work or taken multiple jobs to support themselves. Others have experienced problems as they have become more suburban and attracted new residents. To respond to this growing problem, the National Center on Rural Justice and Crime Prevention at Clemson University is using BJA funds to stimulate partnerships between local justice systems and residents, organizations, and institutions in rural communities and small towns. The center's work focuses on three activities: applying innovative community justice models at six rural sites, gathering and disseminating information about the nature and prevalence of rural crime and delinquency, and providing technical assistance to rural communities nationwide on community building and community justice strategies. In addition, BJA supported the National Center for Rural Law Enforcement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in FY 2000 to provide technical assistance to communities with populations of less than 25,000. The center worked to expand the delivery of Internet services to rural law enforcement agencies, conducted train-the-trainer sessions for rural law enforcement agencies, and continued to develop a Strategic Information Technology Plan. ---------------------------- o The San Diego Police Department and the Anti-Defamation League's Victim Assistance Project responds to the emotional and practical needs of hate crime victims. When a hate crime is reported in San Diego, a trained victim assistance volunteer from the San Diego Police Department is called to the scene to provide emotional support and to coordinate services for pressing needs such as transportation, counseling, and medical attention. The program's victim assistance coordinator then works with the investigating detective to stay in contact with the victim for weeks following the incident. o The Los Angeles County District Attorney's JOLT (Juvenile Offenders Learning Tolerance) Program combines a comprehensive training program for faculty and staff at K-12 schools, a diversion program for juveniles who are involved in bias incidents and less serious hate crimes, and aggressive prosecution of teenagers who commit serious hate crimes or fail to complete the diversion program. o In Massachusetts, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Governor's Task Force on Hate Crimes launched a multipronged effort to improve the reporting of hate crimes throughout the state. A Hate Crime Victimization Survey confirmed that few hate crimes are reported to police: of the 4,510 youth completing a standardized questionnaire, 8.9 percent reported they had been victims of bias-related crimes. Only 3.5 percent of the victims reported the crimes to the police, and only 15.6 percent reported the crimes to school officials. To heighten awareness of these issues in schools and communities, and to strengthen law enforcement's response to hate crimes, the initiative developed student civil rights teams at seven schools across the state, training peer leaders to implement "Stop the Hate" projects. Another effort, spearheaded by the American Prosecutors Research Institute (APRI), helped prosecutors respond to and prosecute hate crimes. In FY 2000, APRI produced a guidebook for prosecutors with detailed information on prevention, investigation, and prosecution strategies and sponsored training for teams of investigators, prosecutors, and victim/witness advocates at the National Advocacy Center. In addition, BJA funded Combating Prejudice and Hate on Campus, the first national student symposium on preventing and reducing hate crimes and bias incidents on American college campuses. More than 300 students, faculty, and administrators from 70 educational institutions attended the event, held March 23-24, 2000, in Boston. The symposium was sponsored by the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence at the University of Southern Maine and the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict at Northeastern University. Support for State and Local Justice Systems Local justice systems are besieged with complex problems such as overcrowding and racial disparity that are eroding public confidence in the fair administration of justice. Many of the initiatives funded by BJA in FY 2000 helped local justice systems to operate more seamlessly as offenders, victims, witnesses, and other participants pass through them. BJA funded critically needed training and technical assistance and innovative demonstration projects to improve the operations of law enforcement agencies, the courts, and aftercare and corrections services. Law Enforcement Management BJA funded several initiatives in FY 2000 that focused on improving law enforcement agencies' internal management and operations. To help agencies address the complex legal, ethical, and technological issues surrounding the use of racial profiling by law enforcement officers, DOJ published A Resource Guide on Racial Profiling Data Collection Systems in 2000 with BJA support. The guide provides an overview of racial profiling; a description of data collection and its purpose; a description of current data collection activities in California, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Great Britain; and recommendations for the future. ---------------------------- We now have, for the first time, the tools with which to ensure that all law enforcement officers throughout our nation receive needed information and training on responding to and investigating hate crimes. -Mike Robinson, Superintendant of Michigan State Police and Immediate Past President, International Association of Chiefs of Police ---------------------------- BJA also supported several technical assistance projects of the International Association of Chiefs of Police that focused on improving police management. IACP helped small police departments meet a broad range of needs, including recruiting minorities, acquiring and using technology, accessing federal grant money, creating task forces, developing better relations with city governments, and implementing community policing programs. IACP's Big Ideas for Smaller Police Departments newsletter was distributed to more than 20,000 personnel in small police agencies across the country. In addition, the IACP National Law Enforcement Policy Center worked with law enforcement executives and public officials to develop model policies for guidance and decisionmaking, and IACP continued its efforts to revise police facilities guidelines to reflect advances in technology, community policing, and other new policing philosophies. The National Center for Women & Policing worked to help law enforcement agencies examine their policies and procedures as they relate to women. The guide Recruiting and Retaining Women: A Self-Assessment Guide for Law Enforcement, released in FY 2000 and disseminated to 2,000 law enforcement agencies, presents practical advice for law enforcement leaders who are trying to increase the number of women in their agencies. Public Defenders, Prosecutors, and Criminal Courts BJA's FY 2000 funding for public defenders, prosecutors, and criminal courts supported initiatives that are using partnerships among these key players to move courts beyond simply processing cases. Adjudication partnerships are valuable catalysts to solve specific, complex problems in the criminal justice system, such as diverting offenders with special needs to treatment or reducing racial disparity, that require each facet of the adjudication system to work together. BJA's FY 2000 funding for adjudication also included a substantial investment in training and technical assistance to keep the operations of pretrial services agencies, prosecutor and indigent defense offices, and criminal courts up to date. A project of the National Center for State Courts, for example, is ensuring that state courts meet their obligations to persons with disabilities under the Americans With Disabilities Act. BJA seeks to bring more balance to the criminal justice system by providing indigent defense more visibility, funding, and information tools. In FY 2000, BJA supported projects in Arizona, Georgia, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas under the Emerging Issues in Indigent Defense Management and Technology Program to improve case management practices and build capacity to access technology. This program represents the first grant opportunity in decades to specifically target defenders. BJA also supported the work of several organizations that provide technical assistance to indigent defense practitioners. The National Legal Aid and Defender Association continued its work to help state and local indigent defense organizations improve the quality of indigent representation in the United States. The Vera Institute of Justice, through the National Defender Leadership Project, provided training to defender managers to help them become more active participants in policy planning and development. BJA funded and disseminated two reports by The Spangenberg Group that focused national attention on major challenges facing the indigent defense community. Other BJA-funded indigent defense projects included the National Symposium on Indigent Defense, which annually brings together more than 275 representatives of defender offices and the courts, and the Executive Session on Indigent Defense at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, a forum for judicial leaders to discuss indigent defense system reform. The Criminal Courts Technical Assistance Project (CCTAP) is a partnership of American University, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, the Pretrial Resource Center, and the Justice Management Institute to provide technical assistance to state and local criminal courts and other adjudication system components. CCTAP's mission is to help courts develop adjudication systems that are accessible, fair, efficient, and accountable. The project's services include onsite assistance from experts and senior staff of the partnership organizations, workshops on emerging issues, best-practice guides, and CCTAP's Web site, www.american.edu/justice, which offers a wide range of information on training and technical assistance. BJA funding for the National Judicial College supported the training of state and local trial judges on issues related to community courts, tribal courts, and courtroom technology. The college's Children as Adults in Court course, which examines developmental differences between adolescents and adults and how these differences affect culpability, competence, and amenability to change, was presented in the spring and fall of 2000 to 70 judges from across the country. In addition, BJA-funded scholarships allowed more than 1,600 tribal court judges and tribal administrators to attend courses offered by the college on building logic and opinion writing skills. ---------------------------- BJA Funding in Focus: Reducing Racial Disparity in the King County, Washington, Justice System In 1995, the Washington State Minority and Justice Commission published a study that found significant differences in the length of confinement recommended for similarly situated black and white offenders. The study reported that deputy prosecutors were less likely to recommend alternative sentences for black offenders and that Hispanic offenders were less likely than other offenders to receive community placement. The commission concluded that "a fruitful direction to pursue in obtaining a more just criminal justice system is to try to confront and modify laws, legal practices, and policies that may disadvantage some groups." In January 1999, BJA awarded an Open Solicitation grant to the King County Office of Public Defense to create a full-time office to coordinate efforts to reduce disproportionate minority representation in the county justice system. Staff from this office have focused on three areas: representing clients, educating defenders, and educating key players in the broader justice system. The office serves indigent clients throughout King County and, by liaison with the Washington Defender Association, public defenders throughout Washington State. Attorneys in the office work directly with defenders at sentencing, identifying and preparing motions raising disproportionality issues. The office also coordinates discussions and training programs for judges and prosecutors on improving court rules and procedures, and works with state legislators on the racial impact of changes in laws and policies. The project's specific goals are to reduce disparity in bail and sentencing decisions and to heighten awareness of racial disparity throughout the King County system. Helping defenders address racial justice issues will improve the quality of both individual and systemic representation. Reducing disparity, even for a small percentage of clients, will save the county significant money in incarceration costs, which run $26,000 per inmate per year, and restore community bonds as clients return to work and family more quickly. ---------------------------- Corrections and Reentry BJA also sought to improve the operation of correctional facilities and supervision programs in FY 2000. BJA-supported corrections and supervision programs have numerous goals: reducing incarceration costs, relieving prison and jail crowding, reducing recidivism rates for youthful and other offenders, aiding offenders' transition back into society, and advancing correctional practices. BJA coordinates this work with national associations such as the American Correctional Association, the American Probation and Parole Association, the Correctional Industries Association, and the National Institute of Corrections (NIC), and with other federal agencies including OJJDP and the Corrections Program Office (CPO) of DOJ. Since 1992, BJA-funded technical assistance providers have worked with more than 40 jurisdictions to develop, enhance, and evaluate correctional options programs to reduce prison and jail crowding without jeopardizing public safety. Under this grant, the Institute on Crime, Justice and Corrections at The George Washington University helped state and local jurisdictions determine the feasibility of implementing such programs, review proposals for new projects, and design and conduct their own evaluations. In FY 2000, this strategy supported innovative correctional practices across the country and a national study of juveniles in adult prisons and jails. The State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, begun in FY 1995, provides financial assistance to state and local governments to help with the cost of incarcerating undocumented criminal aliens. The program, administered by BJA with the assistance of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, is the first federal effort to provide this type of relief. Including FY 2000 payments, $2.8 billion has been distributed to all 50 states, nearly 400 localities, and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico through SCAAP. Without this federal assistance, the financial burden of housing illegal criminal aliens would consume a significant level of local justice system resources. This is especially true in California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Texas, which together consume more than three-fourths of all SCAAP funding. While recognizing the importance of fair and appropriate sentences for those convicted of crimes, BJA also addressed the need to help offenders overcome barriers to reintegration into society once their sentences are over. These barriers include state and federal laws that bar individuals with certain convictions from housing, jobs, public assistance, parental privileges, and the right to vote. To address this critical need, the Legal Action Center provided technical assistance to reentry courts on developing effective strategies to facilitate the reentry of offenders into society, lower recidivism rates, and improve public safety. Since its inception at the Tulane University School of Public Health in 1993, Project Return has given more than 1,000 men and women released from Louisiana prisons an alternative to crime, violence, and illegal drug use. The program gives former offenders, in the crucial first year of their readjustment to free society, a safe, supportive environment in which they can develop respect for themselves and their community. The program's specific goals for participants in FY 2000 included learning the essentials of community building, completing or working toward a general equivalency diploma (GED), becoming aware of addictions and beginning the process of recovery, communicating more effectively with family members, and working on job skills. Evaluation results showed significantly reduced rates of recidivism for Project Return participants when compared with recidivism rates for offenders who leave Louisiana prisons without aftercare services. A project of the Center for Community Corrections, supported by BJA in FY 2000, worked to educate legislators and policymakers about the benefits of community corrections as an alternative sanction for nonviolent offenders. To accomplish this, the center developed a series of monographs specifically addressed to prosecutors, judges, court administrators, defense attorneys, police officers, probation and parole officers, and administrators. Topics include home confinement, drug and alcohol testing and treatment, balancing correctional costs, and community outreach. The monographs will be published in FY 2001. A grant to the National Clearinghouse on Women Offenders focused on women in incarceration, a fast-growing and little-studied inmate group. This project provided assistance on a range of complex issues, including detention, reentry into families and society, and keeping children in closer contact with their mothers. The Correctional Industries Association continued to provide technical assistance and aid to BJA to certify state prison industry programs under the Prison Industries Enhancement (PIE) Certification Program. BJA certification exempts these programs from federal restrictions on product marketability. Prison industry programs create realistic working environments in which inmates produce goods and services and learn valuable employment skills. The programs reduce prison idleness, compensate crime victims, provide family support, offset the price of incarceration, and help inmates reenter the community. ---------------------------- BJA Funding in Focus: Open Solicitation Discretionary Grant Program BJA began the Open Solicitation Discretionary Grant Program in FY 1997 to give state, local, and tribal governments an unprecedented opportunity to identify emerging or chronic criminal justice problems in their communities and propose innovative solutions. To do this, BJA solicits brief concept papers in broad categories that reflect local priorities. An important goal of the program is opening the application process to constituencies that historically have not had access to federal criminal justice grants. BJA has provided a wide range of technical assistance to the sites funded under the three rounds of the Open Solicitation Discretionary Grant Program. In FY 2000, this assistance included a national workshop, guidance with data collection, and an onsite visit to each grantee to aid program implementation and the measurement of short-term outcomes. The following are examples of innovative Open Solicitation programs that received BJA funding in FY 2000. These programs have reached out within their communities to build partnerships with schools, social service agencies, private-sector organizations, and other institutions with a stake in creating safe and vibrant neighborhoods. o In San Diego, noting the increased involvement of homeless individuals in the local criminal justice system and their reluctance to participate in the traditional process, the San Diego Department of the Public Defender created a Homeless Court program that brought the court to the streets. The Homeless Court has improved the accessibility of the justice system, successfully intervening in low-level cases to prevent the escalating fines and penalties resulting from a failure to appear in criminal court. A rigorous evaluation of the program is being conducted and preliminary results show that, from October 1999 through September 2000, hearings were held for 186 defendants. Most defendants had their cases vacated or dismissed, due in large part to their involvement with social service programs that have strict guidelines for participation. Although the proportion of Homeless Court defendants who were rearrested was similar to that of a control group (24 percent versus 33 percent, respectively), Homeless Court participants were significantly less likely to be arrested for a felony offense. o In Gwinn, Michigan, the Forsyth Township Police Department created the Adults Committed Toward Volunteer Efforts (ACTIVE) program to help its seven sworn police officers with routine patrol coverage, public relations activities, and administrative duties. Six volunteers were selected for the ACTIVE team, each of whom received extensive police and safety training at the local police academy and 20 hours of field training from a sworn officer. The increased patrol presence deterred vandalism, burglary, and destruction of property and improved police-community relations. Prior to the ACTIVE program, the police department lacked adequate staff to engage in proactive community policing. o In Roanoke, Virginia, the city police department began the Vietnamese Community Outreach Program to provide services to Roanoke's Vietnamese refugee community and to develop greater cultural awareness among the department's police officers. A dialogue initiated in 1997 between the police department, local government, and service agencies revealed significant cultural, ethnic, and language barriers between the department and the Vietnamese community. Many refugees did not understand or trust the American criminal justice system, and most local police officers did not understand the Vietnamese language or the community's cultural values. ---------------------------- The PIE program now has more than 160 partnerships with private businesses nationwide. An assessment of the program completed in FY 2000 found a high level of regulatory compliance and projected that PIE will generate more than $4 million for victims' programs, $6 million for correctional institution room and board costs, and $4 million in state and federal taxes. BJA funded The Osborne Association to expand the prison-based FamilyWorks Program at the Sing Sing, Woodburne, and Shawangunk Correctional Facilities in New York State. The goals of the program are to reduce the harm suffered by the children of incarcerated fathers, strengthen the families of fathers in prison, and increase the capacity of incarcerated fathers to act as positive and loving parents to their children. More than 400 children visited their fathers for the first time at the Children's Visiting Centers in Sing Sing and Woodburne, and the program opened a new Family Resource Center that operates a hotline for families of prisoners on legal issues, visiting procedures, inmate transfers, and child welfare and income support. BJA continued its support of the Haymarket Center, a full-scale detoxification and substance abuse treatment facility in Chicago, Illinois, that serves more than 13,000 new patients each year, to operate the Alternative to Incarceration Program. Each offender in the program receives a comprehensive assessment of substance abuse patterns and other problem areas. They are then directed to Haymarket's educational and therapeutic groups, which address an array of issues, including substance use/abuse, gender and cultural identities, empowerment, domestic violence, HIV and related health issues, criminal personality and behaviors, job readiness, housing, and education. All programming is offered in English, Spanish, Polish, and sign language. The Alaska Department of Corrections used BJA funds to install an enhanced system to manage offenders under the department's supervision. The system created a comprehensive database of historical data, improved interagency access to information, and improved the department's ability to track and manage offenders. Support for Underserved Constituents BJA funded a wide range of initiatives in FY 2000 to support and protect constituents historically underserved by the justice system. BJA funds provided critical assistance to youth in distressed communities, child victims, and youth prosecuted as adults. BJA funds also supported various collaborative projects to stop elder abuse and telemarketing fraud against elderly people, to link offenders with mental illness to treatment and diversion programs, 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. Established in 1906, Boys & Girls Clubs of America has grown from 53 clubs to a national network of more than 2,800 clubs, many in public housing, schools, churches, shopping malls, homeless shelters, orphanages, Native American reservations, and U.S. military bases around the world. Today, Boys & Girls Clubs serve more than 3.3 million youth, employ more than 10,000 full-time and 40,000 part-time youth professionals, and organize the efforts of more than 200,000 volunteers. Over its 8-year partnership with the clubs, BJA has provided funds to directly assist more than 600,000 youth and to help start at least 850 new clubs. BJA has also funded nearly 2,200 special awards to help local clubs enhance their curricula and reach out to their communities. In FY 2000, BJA funds were used to establish new clubs and expand the outreach of existing clubs in severely distressed communities, Indian Country, and small, rural communities. BJA funds also supported a pilot initiative to bridge the technology divide between affluent and disadvantaged youth by creating youth technology centers. 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, and they funded the creation of forensic interview rooms in Children's Advocacy Centers. The grants also funded training for criminal justice professionals who must interview child victims. The curriculum included legal requirements, minimizing trauma, and a range of issues related to children's memory. To ensure that youth who are prosecuted in criminal courts are adequately represented, BJA supported an initiative led by The Sentencing Project to convene an advisory team of juvenile and adult defenders. The advisory team concluded that representing youth who are prosecuted as adults requires a blend of the services provided in both adult and juvenile courts. A BJA bulletin reporting the team's findings, Providing Effective Representation for Youth Prosecuted as Adults, was widely disseminated to defenders, prosecutors, judges, and other court personnel. To address this problem in Miami, the Miami-Dade Public Defender's Office used BJA funds to create the Juvenile Sentencing Advocacy Program (JSAP). Using teams of attorneys and social workers, JSAP advocates for transferred youth to be sentenced back to the juvenile justice system which, unlike the adult system, was designed to respond to the developmental needs of adolescents. Of the 255 cases handled in the program's first 15 months, 36 percent received juvenile sentences, 56 percent received adult sentences, 4 percent were dismissed, and 5 percent were closed. The sentencing of 91 youth to juvenile sanctions represent a 350-percent increase compared to similarly situated youth from a comparable time period. BJA continued to encourage compliance with the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act, which requires that 10 percent of states' Byrne formula funding be used to establish 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. Initiatives for the Elderly It is estimated that 14,000 illegal telemarketing operations bilk U.S. citizens of at least $40 billion each year. Surveys by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) have found that more than half of telemarketing fraud victims are age 50 or older. Telemarketing hotbeds are California, Florida, Canada and, increasingly, the Caribbean, with some seniors getting more than 20 calls a day from scam artists. In FY 2000, BJA continued to support a consortium of prevention, education, and prosecution projects working to thwart fraudulent telemarketers who prey on senior citizens. A major component of the consortium is the Telemarketing Fraud Training Task Force, a multiagency committee led by the National Association of Attorneys General. The task force 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 broaden criminal and civil enforcement efforts by increasing the numbers of state and local telemarketing prosecutions, coordinate statewide and local investigations and prosecutions, enhance technical and case preparation assistance for state and local prosecutors, and increase United States-Canada cooperation to reduce the cross-border flow of telemarketing fraud. In addition, members of the task force provided training to five BJA-funded demonstration sites that have implemented innovative telemarketing prevention and enforcement programs. The programs are located in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Hillsborough County (Tampa), Raleigh, and Montpelier, Vermont. Another key effort of BJA's work to stop victimization of the elderly is the national TRIAD initiative, which brings together, at the local level, law enforcement agencies and senior citizen volunteer, advocacy, and service groups to reduce crime against elderly people. TRIAD was first conceived in 1988 when AARP, IACP, and the National Sheriffs' Association agreed to form a partnership. The first TRIAD agreement was signed the following year in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana. More than 700 counties in the United States have since signed TRIAD agreements, and 34 states have formed statewide TRIAD networks in which representatives of local TRIADs meet to discuss ways to improve senior safety. At the county level, police chiefs, the sheriff, and senior groups survey the needs of seniors in their communities and implement programs to improve the delivery of law enforcement services to them. To do this, local TRIADs educate residents and community leaders about elder abuse and fraud and help law enforcement officers and senior citizen service providers identify and reach out to elderly victims of crime. To combat abuse of elderly people in Placer County, California, the Placer County District Attorney's Office developed a community prosecution partnership that vigorously prevents, investigates, and prosecutes elder abuse. The heart of this project is CAMET, Placer County's Community and Agency Multidisciplinary Elder Team. CAMET's members include law enforcement and social service agencies and members of the community. CAMET is preparing a comprehensive report on the extent and nature of elder abuse in Placer County, developing curricula and coordinating training for relevant agency personnel, promoting public education, and developing specific strategies to improve public and private responses to incidents of elder abuse. ---------------------------- BJA Funding in Focus: Operation Tough Call Southern California is the telemarketing capital of the world. The region ranks first in the nation as the location with the largest number of fraudulent companies reported by victims. Hundreds of sophisticated boiler rooms operate there, running scams that involve prizes, office supplies, phony charities, investments in precious metals and oil, wireless cable, movie deals, infomercials, and a variety of Internet products and services. Senior citizens are often the target of these schemes. The California Department of Corporations responded to this growing problem with Operation Tough Call, a BJA-funded command center that works closely with a task force of local, state, and federal law enforcement and regulatory agencies. The command center's daily activities include o Sharing information about the latest telemarketing scams. o Creating databases and link charts to track targets and determine trends and priorities. o Facilitating "reverse boiler rooms" in which AARP and other volunteers call potential victims. o Organizing raids and enforcement sweeps to bring actions against promoters, boiler room operators, and telephone salespersons who use high-pressure sales techniques to swindle unsuspecting investors. ---------------------------- Initiatives for Offenders With Mental Illness In FY 2000, several BJA-funded initiatives increased cooperation between two systems that traditionally have not worked well together: the mental health treatment system and the criminal justice system. In many local justice systems nationwide, jails have become ill-equipped surrogates for mental institutions. Mentally ill offenders spend unnecessary time in jail and cycling through the system because they receive little or no mental health treatment while in custody. In Seattle, Washington, the King County Mental Health Court ensures that misdemeanor defendants with mental illness are adjudicated by one dedicated team that works together to get treatment for mentally ill offenders, reduce recidivism among this special population, decrease the use of jails and prisons as warehouses for mentally ill offenders, and increase public safety. The team includes a judge, a prosecutor, a defender, a social worker, a treatment liaison, and probation officers. In Broward County, Florida, the South Florida Corrections Options Program continued its efforts to expand the diversion of mentally ill, female misdemeanor offenders from the justice system. In addition to providing for screening and evaluation of offenders for the Broward County Mental Health Court, this grant supported the creation and operation of a forensic treatment center that offers treatment and assistance services to complement the mental health court's diversion efforts. In FY 2000, BJA published Emerging Judicial Strategies for the Mentally Ill in the Criminal Caseload: Mental Health Courts in Fort Lauderdale, Seattle, San Bernardino, and Anchorage, which discusses how four communities are dealing with this issue. The Public Health and Criminal Justice Collaborations Project, funded under the FY 1998 Open Solicitation Grant Program, has linked the criminal justice and mental health systems in Polk County, Florida, to increase services to offenders with mental health disabilities. Mental health service providers in Polk County conduct psychosocial assessments and mental status exams to determine the level of mental health care defendants will need while incarcerated. They also attend court hearings to recommend that treatment programs be incorporated into sentencing and aftercare programs for offenders in need of mental health services. Initiatives for American Indian and Alaska Native Communities Among the most critical assistance BJA provides is that to American Indian and Alaska Native communities. While crime rates in most jurisdictions have fallen in recent years, they are rising in 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 these often geographically isolated and historically neglected justice systems. Major BJA-funded initiatives in FY 2000 were the Tribal Court Assistance Program, Crime Analysis and Planning Strategies (CAPS) for American Indian and Alaska Native Communities, the Alaska Native Technical Assistance and Resource Center, and Tribal Strategies Against Violence (TSAV) Training and Technical Assistance. As part of DOJ's FY 2000 Indian Country Law Enforcement Initiative, BJA 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 in which they can address specific issues such as substance abuse and domestic violence and promote tribal sovereignty and self-government. Awards under the first component of this initiative 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. The second component of the initiative provided training and technical assistance for tribal court grant recipients and created a National Tribal Justice Resource Center. The center's initial goals are to create a clearinghouse of existing tribal judicial resources; establish a toll-free helpline for tribal justice systems; develop a free searchable database of tribal justice system opinions; provide online reference and research assistance services through the center's Web site (www.tribalresourcecenter.org); and establish a mentor system for tribal justice systems. In 1998, BJA began regional Crime Analysis and Planning Strategies trainings for tribal leadership and communities with large portions of diverse Indian Country populations. Spearheaded by Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton, Wisconsin, these 4-day executive-level trainings assist tribal jurisdictions as they develop a comprehensive model for identifying crime risk and assessing its impact. To date, 42 tribal teams have completed 7 regional training programs. In FY 1999, the first CAPS training in an Alaska Native community took place in Kotzube, Alaska. Trainings were also conducted in Scottsdale, Arizona; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Anchorage, Alaska. The Alaska Native Technical Assistance and Resource Center, coordinated by the Anchorage Justice Center at the University of Alaska, was created to help Alaska Native villages analyze and solve local crime problems. The program trains staff from each participating village in program management while also providing onsite technical support. As staff assist their own villages, they will learn how to provide similar instruction and technical support for peers in future partnering villages. Over the course of 3 years, the project will enhance the community problem-solving skills of 52 rural Alaskan villages. BJA also funded the Anchorage Justice Center, which is working 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. Tribal Strategies Against Violence is a comprehensive initiative to control and prevent crime, violence, criminal gang activities, and substance abuse in American Indian communities. A primary focus of the project is forming centralized planning teams that represent tribal service providers (law enforcement, prosecution, education, social services, spiritual leaders, and businesses) and youth. NCPC provides training and technical assistance to the seven TSAV demonstration sites: the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation; the Rosebud Sioux Tribe; the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes; the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians; the Chickasaw Nation; the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians; and the Puyallup Tribe of Indians. In FY 2000, BJA funded the publication of Hope and Harmony: How Seven Native American Tribes Reduced Crime and Violence, an NCPC report on TSAV's impact in Indian Country. The program is also the subject of an ongoing NIJ evaluation. ---------------------------- BJA Funding in Focus: Bethel, Alaska's Cultural Navigator Sharon Lindley has a unique job for the Alaska Court System. She works as a cultural navigator. An important part of her job is translating for Yup'ik defendants, witnesses to crime, and villagers summoned to jury service at the courthouse in Bethel, Alaska. The position involves a lot more than translating, though. Lindley explains the alien environment of the courthouse, which operates on some very un-Yup'ik concepts. There's the adversarial nature of the justice system, in which two people--the prosecutor and the defense attorney--try their hardest to press opposing arguments. Or the idea that you should say bad things about another person. Or that it is wise to keep quiet about your misdeeds. According to Lindley, many Yup'ik defendants in Bethel would rather plead no contest right away than exercise their right to a trial and make prosecutors prove their case. Lindley's job, a part-time position paid with a BJA grant, was one of the suggestions contained in the 1997 report of an Alaska Supreme Court advisory committee dealing with fairness and access to the courts. Attorneys, Yup'ik leaders, and rural residents told the committee that cultural differences work against Alaska Natives in court. Yup'ik people, they testified, feel intimidated in court and will often say what they think the questioner wants to hear to avoid making trouble. Many Alaska Native defendants think it does not matter if they plead to something a little worse than what they did, and Yup'ik people do not like to accuse others of wrongdoing, particularly in domestic violence cases involving a family member. Lindley will help people in English or Yup'ik and from any other culture, but most of her clients are Alaska Natives. The courthouse she works in serves a population of 22,000 in Bethel and 56 surrounding villages. About 85 percent of that population is Yup'ik. --From "Cultural Navigator Guides Natives in Court," Anchorage Daily News, May 22, 2000. ---------------------------- Technology Initiatives Traditionally, funding for information technology equipment, training, and technical assistance has been limited to individual programs or specific purposes. This approach has led the various justice components in state, local, and tribal governments to the use of different computer systems. Many of these systems are incapable of sharing information. They perpetuate, rather than alleviate, inefficiency in regional, state, and local justice systems. OJP and BJA recognize that integrated government is the future. Many state and local governments are planning information architecture that includes all government services, including education, health, and other social services. It is crucial that federal funding support this broad view of integration. The Crime Identification Technology Act (CITA), enacted in October 1998, authorizes funds to help states and local jurisdictions establish, integrate, or upgrade criminal justice information systems and identification technologies that enhance their ability to fight crime. In FY 2000, CITA funds supported BJA grants and technical assistance to states and American Indian tribes through a cooperative agreement with the National Governors' Association. Integrated Government Achieving effective and efficient information sharing across the country requires a comprehensive state, local, and tribal justice integration effort, a comprehensive federal integration effort, and the coordination of these efforts nationally and with the international justice community. The Global Justice Information Network (Global), chartered in 1998 under the Federal Advisory Committee Act and directed by BJA, plays a vital role nationally by advising the Attorney General on information- sharing initiatives among local, state, interstate, and federal justice agencies; guiding national integration policy; and facilitating the development of national standards on appropriate information sharing. Global's goal is to support technologies that allow greater information sharing rather than creating another network. Where possible, Global works to enhance, expand, and link current networks and systems under open, Web-based standards that enable broader sharing of relevant and appropriate information. As new systems are designed within each justice discipline, they can be linked to the existing enhanced networks, bringing increased benefits to users and adding value to the universal infrastructure. The BJA-funded OJP Information Technology (IT) Initiative is designing a more strategic approach to OJP's technology funding and technical assistance by coordinating more than 40 statutory provisions that authorize the purchase of information technology. The IT Initiative seeks to improve communication and information sharing at all levels of government--federal, state, and local--and across all disciplines within the criminal and juvenile justice systems. The initiative coordinates its work with DOJ's other technology initiatives, including the Public Safety Wireless Network Initiative (PSWN), the National Institute of Justice's AGILE program, and the DOJ/National Performance Review Crime Mapping Initiative. In FY 2000, the IT Initiative pursued projects in a number of high-priority areas, including systems integration, standards, and privacy: o The National Integration Resource Center provided vital information to justice components at all levels of government on integration processes, initiatives, and new policy and technology developments. The center's Web site, which will be launched in spring 2001, will include integration profiles for states, compilations of best practices and success stories, lessons learned pursuing integration and interoperability, system descriptions and overviews, telecommunications approaches, mobile data terminal and wireless initiatives, and model integrated systems. o The initiative continued its work to identify and adopt standards critical to information exchange and maintenance. The initiative supported the efforts of the National Center for State Courts, the Conference of State Court Administrators, and the National Association of Court Managers to develop functional court automation standards in the criminal justice and juvenile justice areas. In addition, the initiative supported the development of architectures through a software reuse project with the State of Missouri and technical assistance through the National Association of State Information Resource Executives and State Chief Information Officers. o The initiative's Justice Information Privacy effort provided assistance on privacy policy and technology design to state, local, and tribal justice practitioners through guidelines, principles, assessment tools, discussion forums, training, and technical assistance. The Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS) Program assists law enforcement agencies as they fight drug trafficking and organized criminal activity across jurisdictional lines. In FY 2000, BJA funding helped the six regional RISS centers provide state-of-the-art investigative support and training, analytical services, specialized equipment, and informationsharing technology to more than 5,500 municipal, county, state, and federal law enforcement agencies nationwide. This assistance helped law enforcement agencies make more than 3,000 arrests and seize or recover illegal controlled substances, property, and currency worth $100 million. The National White Collar Crime Center provides a national support network for federal, state, and local law enforcement and regulatory agencies in all aspects of prevention, investigation, and prosecution of economic and high-tech crime. These crimes include investment fraud, health-care fraud, telemarketing and securities fraud, financial crimes against elderly people, and computer crime. In FY 2000, BJA funding enabled NWCCC to serve as the operational gateway to the following initiatives: the National Cybercrime Training Partnership (NCTP), the National Fraud Complaint Management Center, the National Coalition for the Prevention of Economic Crime, the NWCCC Research Section, and the Internet Fraud Complaint Center in partnership with the FBI. More than 800 individuals representing 376 agencies were trained in FY 2000 in financial investigation, financial records examination and analysis, and disaster fraud. NWCCC member agencies cited the center's resources as key factors in cases that resulted in more than 200 arrests and indictments, $4.7 million in criminal restitution, and 1,400 months in criminal sentences. ---------------------------- BJA Funding in Focus: National Cybercrime Training Partnership Every day in law enforcement agencies across the country, investigators and prosecutors confront new cybercrime issues that demand a high level of technical knowledge and skill. The pace of change in cybercrime is relentless. Without continuously updated training, investigators and prosecutors scramble to present their cases effectively in court. NCTP provides this guidance to ensure that our nation's law enforcement community can fight electronic and high-technology crime. In 2000, NCTP trained thousands of law enforcement personnel in data recovery and analysis and Internet fraud and distributed nearly 50,000 copies of the videotape and manual Cyber Crime Fighting--The Law Enforcement Officer's Guide to Online Crime. ---------------------------- Strategic Technical Assistance BJA supported several critical initiatives in FY 2000 to provide technology-related training and technical assistance. BJA funding for the Strategic Information Technology Center helped state and local criminal justice practitioners understand and apply the emerging field of information technology within the criminal justice system. This program helped more than 1,000 law enforcement agencies access the Internet, a 250-percent increase over 1999. The center also created more than 3,800 e-mail accounts for criminal justice practitioners, provided technical assistance to 720 agencies, and conducted numerous site visits to local law enforcement agencies to provide training and other assistance on information technology. The Criminal Intelligence Systems Training and Technical Assistance program provides assistance to state and local jurisdictions in the areas of criminal intelligence systems and compliance with federal regulations, particularly those ensuring individuals' rights to privacy. In 2000, the program trained more than 1,400 law enforcement and criminal intelligence personnel. Other BJA-funded projects related to investigative and surveillance technology helped detectives use innovative ways to organize and search crime scene data and other criminal intelligence gathered during investigations. One project has created an electronic template for organizing this information, called the Murder Book, and trained law enforcement personnel across the country in its use. A second initiative empowered law enforcement officers by teaching them how to use new technology created to manage criminal intelligence information. ---------------------------- Appendixes BJA FISCAL YEAR 2000 ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS ---------------------------- BJA Legislative Purpose Area Descriptions Byrne Grant Program Purpose Areas The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. 3711 et seq., at section 501, provides a general statement of the overall purposes of the Byrne Grant Program and establishes 26 purpose areas that define the nature and scope of programs and projects that might be funded under it. Frequently, Congress also uses other legislation (e.g., appropriations bill) to provide additional authorizations for limited periods (usually the current year only). Together, these laws provide substantial authorization for programs addressing drug control, violent and serious crime, all aspects of criminal justice processing including incarceration and treatment of offenders, and general improvements in the justice system operations. There is, however, some degree of overlap within several of these purpose areas and the program examples following each. This listing is, in part, an attempt to distinguish among them. (1) Demand reduction education programs in which law enforcement officers participate. o Demand Reduction Education (not D.A.R.E.) o Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) o Officer Training for D.A.R.E. Program (2) Multijurisdictional task force (MJTF) programs that integrate federal, state, and/or local drug law enforcement agencies and prosecutors for the purpose of enhancing interagency coordination and intelligence and facilitating multijurisdictional investigations. o Multijurisdictional/Regional Drug Task Forces o Regional Violent Drug Trafficker Program o Organized Crime/Narcotics Program o Special Narcotics Prosecutor (in direct support of MJTF) o Statewide Confidential Funds Pool o Narcotics Surveillance Equipment and Training Program (if in support of multisite enforcement programs) o Drug Offenders Intelligence System (in direct support of MJTF) (3) Programs designed to target the domestic sources of controlled and illegal substances, such as precursor chemicals, diverted pharmaceuticals, clandestine laboratories, and cannabis cultivations. o Pharmaceutical Diversion o Clandestine Methamphetamine Laboratories o Marijuana Eradication o Drug Identification (laboratory-based research studies) (4) Providing community and neighborhood programs that assist citizens in preventing and controlling crime, including special programs that address the problems of crimes committed against the elderly and special programs for rural jurisdictions. o Community Crime Prevention o Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design o Neighborhood Watch o National Night Out Against Crime o Community Policing/Prosecution (see also purpose areas 10 and 16) o Drug-Impacted Rural Jurisdictions o Reaching High-Risk Youth Through Outdoor Activities o Senior Citizen Crime Prevention/Golden Alert Program o TRIAD (5) Disrupting illicit commerce in stolen goods and property. o County Attorney's Office Property Crime Program o Motor Vehicle Theft Prevention (6) Improving the investigation and prosecution of white-collar crime (e.g., organized crime, public corruption crimes, and fraud against the government with priority attention to cases involving drug-related official corruption). o Reducing Drug Corruption in Police Departments o Targeting White Collar Crime (7A) Improving the operational effectiveness of law enforcement through the use of crime analysis techniques, street sales enforcement, school yard violator programs, and gang-related and low-income housing drug control programs. o Drug Task Force (single jurisdiction effort) o Drug-Free School Zone Enforcement o Arson Prevention and Control o Preserving the Crime Scene o Drug Dog/Canine Acquisition and Training/K-9 Unit o Violent Fugitives Arrest Squad o Firearms Trafficking/Control/Licensing Enforcement (7B) Developing and implementing antiterrorism plans for deep draft ports, international airports, and other important facilities. o Night Eyes' State Water Patrol o Airport Antiterrorism Task Force (8) Career criminal prosecution programs, including the development of model drug control legislation. o Career Criminal/Major Offender/Career Drug Offender Prosecution o Narcotics Prosecution Unit (but use purpose area 2 if directly in support of MJTF) o Model Drug Control Legislation (directed at offenders) o Use of Civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) in Drug Enforcement (9) Financial investigative programs that target the identification of money laundering operations and assets obtained through illegal drug trafficking, including the development of proposed model legislation, financial investigative training, and financial information-sharing systems. o Financial Investigations o Asset Forfeiture Units o Model Drug Control Legislation (directed at assets) (10) Improving the operational effectiveness of the court process by expanding prosecutorial, defender, and judicial resources and implementing court delay reduction programs. o Community Prosecution/Community Courts (see also purpose area 16) o Differentiated/Expedited Case Management o Indigent Defense System Improvement o Drug Courts (specialized narcotics courtrooms; contrast purpose area 20) o Pretrial Services Delivery (but use purpose area 15A if primary focus is on drug testing or purpose area 20 if focus is on reducing jail crowding) o Video Arraignment/Presentence Telecommunications Project (11) Programs designed to provide additional public correctional resources and improve the corrections system, including treatment in prisons and jails, intensive supervision programs, and long-range corrections and sentencing strategies. o Intensive Supervision Probation and Parole o Boot Camps o Treatment in a Jail Setting o Substance Abuse Treatment for Female Inmates o Correctional Facilities Planning/Population Projections o Sentencing Strategies Development (12) Providing prison industry projects designed to place inmates in a realistic working and training environment which will enable them to acquire marketable skills and to make financial payments for restitution to their victims, for support of their own families, and for support of themselves in the institution. o Prison/Jail Industries (13) Providing programs which identify and meet the treatment needs of adult and juvenile drug-dependent and alcohol-dependent offenders. o Treatment for Drug Addicted Offenders o Day Treatment Center for Juvenile Offenders o Treatment Aftercare Unit o Driving Under the Influence/Driving While Intoxicated (DUI/DWI) Rehabilitation and Training (14) Developing and implementing programs which provide assistance to jurors and witnesses and assistance (other than compensation) to victims of crime. o One Day-One Trial/Jury Management Improvement o Systems for Setting Juror Fees/Compensation o Victim/Witness Program o Offenders' Restitution for Victims o Victim Assistance (15A) Developing programs to improve drug control technology, such as pretrial drug testing programs; to provide for the identification, assessment, referral to treatment, case management and monitoring of drug-dependent offenders; and to enhance state and local forensic laboratories. o Pretrial/Probation/Parole Drug Testing o Statewide Urinalysis Testing o Treatment Alternatives to Street Crimes (TASC) o Forensic Laboratory Enhancement (but use purpose area 25 if DNA related) (15B) Criminal justice information systems to assist law enforcement, prosecution, courts, and corrections organizations (including automated fingerprint identification systems). o Criminal Justice Records Improvement (CJRI) o Criminal Justice Information Systems (CJIS) o Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) o Prosecution Management Support Systems o Management Information Systems (for administrative support) o Metropolitan Criminal Intelligence System (but use purpose area 2 if restricted solely to MJTF drug-related information) o DUI Data Collection System (16) Innovative programs which demonstrate new and different approaches to enforcement, prosecution, and adjudication of drug offenses and other serious crimes. o Hot Spots Comprehensive Neighborhood Crime Program o Community Justice Centers (17) Addressing the problems of drug trafficking and the illegal manufacture of controlled substances in public housing. o Enforcement in Public Housing Developments o Eliminating Crack Houses (in public housing) (18) Improving the criminal and juvenile justice system's response to domestic and family violence, including spouse abuse, child abuse, and abuse of the elderly. o Domestic/Family Violence Intervention o Law Enforcement's Response to Domestic Violence o Child Abuse Prosecution o Responding to Sexual Abuse of Children o Crimes Against the Elderly (in domestic settings; see also purpose area 4) (19) Drug control evaluation programs which state and local units of government may utilize to evaluate programs and projects directed at state drug control activities. o Evaluation of Drug Control Programs o Research and Evaluation (20) Providing alternatives to prevent detention, jail, and prison for persons who pose no danger to the community. o Alternatives to Incarceration o House Arrest/Electronic Monitoring o Drug Courts (directed to diverting offenders into treatment; contrast purpose area 10) o Restitution by Juveniles o Community Service Labor Program o User Accountability Sanctioning (not involving incarceration) (21) Programs of which the primary goal is to strengthen urban enforcement and prosecution efforts targeted at street drug sales. o Street Sales/Street-Level Narcotics Enforcement o Drug Enforcement Enhancement o Crack Houses/Nuisance Abatement Unit o Reverse Sting Demand Reduction Enforcement o Drug Recognition Training for Patrol Officers o Motor Vehicle Officers' Watch for Drugs (22) Prosecution of driving while intoxicated charges and the enforcement of other laws relating to alcohol use and the operation of motor vehicles. o Enhanced Prosecution of DWI Cases o Diversion of DWI Offenders into Treatment (23) Addressing the need for effective bindover systems for the prosecution of violent 16- and 17-year-old juveniles in courts with jurisdiction over adults for (certain enumerated) violent crimes o Violent Juvenile Waiver to Adult Court Program o Prosecutor's Juvenile Bindover Unit (24) Law enforcement and prevention programs that relate to gangs or to youth who are involved in or are at risk of involvement in gangs. o Gang Task Forces o Specialized Gang Prosecutors o Juvenile Gangs Involvement in Drug Trafficking o Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) (25) Developing or improving forensic laboratory capabilities to analyze DNA for identification purposes. o DNA Database Identification System o DNA Laboratory Enhancement and Training Program (26) Developing and implementing antiterrorism training programs and procuring equipment for use by local law enforcement authorities. o Law Enforcement Officer Training in Antiterrorism o Enhancing Enforcement Capabilities for Responding to Terrorist Acts (27) Enforcing child abuse and neglect laws, including protecting against child sexual abuse and promoting programs designed to prevent child abuse and neglect. (28) Establishing or supporting cooperative programs between law enforcement and media organizations to collect, record, retain, and disseminate information useful in the identification and apprehension of suspected criminal offenders. Note: Congress has authorized the use of Byrne funds to support programs that assist in the litigation of death penalty federal habeas corpus petitions and drug testing initiatives. This authorization applies to FY 1998, 1999, and 2000 awards and may or may not be available in future funding cycles. Local Law Enforcement Block Grants Program Purpose Areas Through the Local Law Enforcement Block Grants (LLEBG) Program, BJA provides funds to units of local government to underwrite projects to reduce crime and improve public safety. LLEBG funds must be spent in the following purpose areas: (1) Hiring, training, and employing on a continuous basis new, additional law enforcement officers and necessary support personnel. (2) Paying overtime to employed law enforcement officers and necessary support personnel to increase the number of hours worked by such personnel. (3) Procuring equipment, technology, and other materials directly related to basic law enforcement functions. (4) Enhancing security measures in and around schools and other facilities or locations that the unit of local government considers to be at risk for incidents of crime. (5) Establishing or supporting drug courts. (6) Enhancing the adjudication of cases involving violent offenders, including cases involving violent juvenile offenders. (7) Establishing a multijurisdictional task force, particularly in rural areas, composed of law enforcement officials representing units of local government. These task forces must work with Federal law enforcement officials to prevent and control crime. (8) Establishing cooperative crime prevention programs between community residents and law enforcement personnel to control, detect, or investigate crime or to prosecute criminals. (9) Defraying the cost of indemnification insurance for law enforcement officers. LLEBG funds may not be used to purchase, lease, rent, or acquire tanks or armored vehicles, fixed-wing aircraft, limousines, real estate, yachts, or any vehicle not used primarily for law enforcement. Funds are not to be used to retain consultants. Construction of new facilities is also prohibited. In addition, federal funds may not be used to supplant state or local funds; they must be used to increase the amount of funds that would otherwise be available from state and local sources. ---------------------------- Table 1-6 are not included in this ASCII plain-text file. To view this document in its entirety, download the Adobe Acrobat graphic file available from this Web site or order a print copy from BJA at 800-688-4252. ---------------------------- Fiscal Year 2000 BJA Publications Document Date of Publication Document Publication Number A Policymaker's Guide to Hate Crimes (Monograph) November 1999 NCJ 162304 Addressing Hate Crimes: Six Initiatives (Monograph) February 2000 NCJ 179559 Boys & Girls Clubs of America (Fact Sheet) May 2000 FS 000263 Building a Better Criminal Justice System: BJA FY 1999 Annual Report to Congress June 2000 NCJ 182954 Bulletproof Vest Partnership (Fact Sheet) April 2000 FS 000259 Chelsea, Massachusetts: A City Helps Its Diverse People Get Along (Bulletin) January 2000 NCJ 179866 Contracting for Indigent Defense Services (Monograph) April 2000 NCJ 181160 Creating a New Criminal Justice System for the 21st Century (Monograph) April 2000 NCJ 178936 Defense Procurement Fraud Debarment Clearinghouse (Fact Sheet) March 2000 FS 000257 Emerging Judicial Strategies for the Mentally Ill: Mental Health Courts (Monograph) April 2000 NCJ 182504 FY 1998 Open Solicitation Discretionary Grant Program: The Results (Monograph) November 1999 NCJ 178232 FY 1999 Local Law Enforcement Block Grants Program (Fact Sheet) October 1999 FS 000254 FY 2000 Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Program (Fact Sheet) April 2000 FS 000264 FY 2000 Local Law Enforcement Block Grants Program (Fact Sheet) April 2000 FS 000262 FY 2000 Program Plan April 2000 SL 000421 FY 2000 Publications List September 2000 BC 000189 FY 2000 State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (Fact Sheet) May 2000 FS 000260 Indigent Defense and Technology: A Progress Report (Monograph) November 1999 NCJ 179003 Investing Wisely in Crime Prevention: International Experiences (Monograph) September 2000 NCJ 182412 Keeping Illegal Activity Out of Rental Property (Monograph) April 2000 NCJ 148656 Kid's Korner Program: City of Reno, Nevada, Police Department (Bulletin) June 2000 NCJ 181718 A History of the Local Law Enforcement Block Grants Program: Supporting Local Solutions to Crime (Bulletin) April 2000 NCJ 179982 Memphis, Tennessee, Police Department's Crisis Intervention Team (Bulletin) July 2000 NCJ 182504 National Hate Crimes Training Curriculum for Patrol and Responding Officers (Volume 1, Training Guide) February 2000 NCJ 176991 National Hate Crimes Training Curriculum for Detectives and Investigators (Volume 2, Training Guide) February 2000 NCJ 176992 National Hate Crimes Training Core Curriculum for Patrol Officers, Detectives, and Command Officers (Volume 3, Training Guide) February 2000 NCJ 176993 National Hate Crimes Training Curriculum for Command Officers (Volume 4, Training Guide) January 2000 NCJ 176994 National Night Out: A Community-Police Partnership (Fact Sheet) November 1999 FS 000255 National Night Out: Building Police and Community Partnerships (Bulletin) April 2000 NCJ 180775 National Training and Information Center (Bulletin) July 2000 NCJ 182903 Opening the Courts to the Community: Volunteers in Wisconsin's Courts (Bulletin) April 2000 NCJ 178935 Promising Practices Against Hate Crimes: Five Demonstration Projects (Monograph) May 2000 NCJ 181425 Providing Effective Representation for Youth Prosecuted as Adults (Bulletin) August 2000 NCJ 182502 Reducing Illegal Firearms Trafficking (Monograph) July 2000 NCJ 180752 Rural Law Enforcement Internet Access, Technical Assistance, and Training Program (Fact Sheet) August 2000 FS 000266 SEARCH National Technical Assistance and Training Program (Fact Sheet) October 1999 FS 000253 Watch Your Car Program (Fact Sheet) April 2000 FS 000261 ---------------------------- Bureau of Justice Assistance Information General Information Callers may contact the U.S. Department of Justice Response Center for general information or specific needs, such as assistance in submitting grant applications and information on training. To contact the Response Center, call 1-800-421-6770 or write to 1100 Vermont Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20005. Indepth Information For more indepth information about BJA, its programs, and its funding opportunities, requesters can call the BJA Clearinghouse. The BJA Clearinghouse, a component of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), shares BJA program information with state and local agencies and community groups across the country. Information specialists are available to provide reference and referral services, publication distribution, participation and support for conferences, and other networking and outreach activities. The Clearinghouse can be reached by o Mail P.O. Box 6000 Rockville, MD 20849-6000 o Visit 2277 Research Boulevard Rockville, MD 20850 o Telephone 1-800-688-4252 Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. eastern time o Fax 301-519-5212 o Fax on Demand 1-800-688-4252 o BJA Home Page www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA o NCJRS World Wide Web www.ncjrs.org o E-mail askncjrs@ncjrs.org o JUSTINFO Newsletter E-mail to listproc@ncjrs.org Leave the subject line blank In the body of the message, type: subscribe justinfo [your name]