Title: Working Together for Peace and Justice. Series: Annual Report to Congress Author: BJA Published: Bureau of Justice Assistance, June 1999 Subject: Criminal justice system 40 pages 91,000 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 NCJRS at 800-851-3420 (877-712-9279 For TTY users). BJA at 800-688- 4252. ------------------------------- U.S. Department of Justice Office of Programs Bureau of Justice Assistance Fiscal Year 1998 Working Together for Peace and Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance Annual Report to Congress June 1999 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 1998. Respectfully submitted, Nancy E. Gist Director Bureau of Justice Assistance Washington, D.C. June 1999 Message from the Director The Bureau of Justice Assistance was created to help America's communities, states, and territories develop strategies to reduce victimization and restore a sense of security to our neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools. BJA's mission is to ensure that the innovative, diligent, and often unsung work of criminal justice practitioners gets the support it needs to make all of our lives safer. This annual report describes the funding and technical assistance provided to state and local criminal justice systems by BJA in FY 1998. This past fiscal year, BJA administered $1.7 billion to state and local agencies to support an extraordinary range of proven and promising programs in crime prevention, community justice, law enforcement, adjudication, supervision services, technology, and evaluation. Every day these efforts have a significant impact on the lives of Americans. BJA's most important contribution to the safety of our nation is funding the implementation, evaluation, and replication of these programs. At the heart of every initiative in this report is the belief that no one part of our communities and justice system can address our nation's culture of violence. Every member of society and government has an important contribution to make. BJA believes that those contributions become more powerful through partnerships. Partnerships open the criminal justice system at every level to innovative thinking and break down barriers between community and police, prosecution and defense, and federal and local levels. It is our hope that BJA-funded programs will continue to stimulate the efforts of dedicated public servants who are looking at criminal justice in new ways. It is only by working together that we can build a safer America and restore peace and justice to all communities throughout our nation. Nancy E. Gist Director ------------------------------- Contents Section I About the Bureau of Justice Assistance Mission Goals BJA Funding Streams --Byrne Formula Funds --Byrne Discretionary Funds --Local Law Enforcement Block Grants --Earmarked Funds and Special Programs Section II An Overview of Fiscal Year 1998 Activities Reorganizing BJA To Better Serve State and Local Constituents Building State and Local Partnerships for Community Justice Facilitating Innovation, Access to Justice, and System Balance Building State and Local Capacity for Strategic Planning Creating a Comprehensive and Effective Justice System Communicating With the Field. Section III FY 1998 Support to State and Local Justice Systems Empowering Communities To Prevent Crime Supporting Law Enforcement Supporting Innovation in Adjudication Managing Offenders Under Supervision Making the Justice System More Responsive to Victims of Crime Improving Justice Systems in American Indian and Alaska Native Communities Technology: Using 21st Century Tools Evaluation: A Roadmap to What Works Appendixes BJA Legislative Purpose Area Descriptions BJA Grant Awards to States and U.S. Territories BJA Publications Printed Fiscal Year 1998 ------------------------------- SECTION I About the Bureau of Justice Assistance Mission BJA's mission is to provide leadership, funding, training, and technical assistance in support of local criminal justice strategies to achieve strong neighborhoods and safe communities. Goals o To coordinate with states, units of local government, and tribal governments innovative approaches to crime control and prevention, working closely with partners that have a direct stake in creating safer communities. o To transfer knowledge about successful crime control and prevention strategies to states, cities, and communities across the country. o To maintain collaborative crime control programs that use strategic planning and public-private partnerships to improve criminal justice. o To lead by example with a responsive and dynamic staff that serve the needs of local practitioners. BJA Funding Streams The assistance that BJA provides to states and local communities flows through distinct funding streams. These streams are the Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Program (the Byrne Program), the Local Law Enforcement Block Grants Program, congressional earmarks, and special programs. The two main components of the Byrne Program are Byrne formula funds and Byrne discretionary funds. Byrne Formula Funds BJA is authorized by Congress under the Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Program to make grants to states, for use by states and local units of government, to improve the functioning of the criminal justice system, with emphasis on violent crimes and serious offenders, and to enforce state and local laws that establish offenses similar to those in the Federal Controlled Substances Act. Under the Byrne Formula Grant Program, BJA determines each state's annual grant entitlement by applying a modified population-based formula to the total amount of the appropriation. A base amount (0.25 percent of the total appropriation or $500,000, whichever is greater) is guaranteed to each state, with remaining funds distributed according to a state's relative share of the total U.S. population. To receive Byrne funds, states must develop a strategic, multiyear violence prevention and drug control strategy. In each state, Byrne funds, Local Law Enforcement Block Grants, and other statewide, BJA-funded programs are administered by a State Administrative Agency, which must pass through a share of the Byrne funds to local jurisdictions in proportion to local agencies' share of total state criminal justice expenditures. Byrne formula funds may be applied to 26 legislative purpose areas, which were established by Congress (see appendixes, page 35). Byrne Discretionary Funds BJA is authorized by Congress to award grants to public and private agencies and organizations for national-scope demonstration, training, and technical assistance programs in support of state and local criminal justice systems. Each year Congress directs BJA to award a portion of the appropriated Byrne program funds to specified programs and organizations, such as the National Citizens' Crime Prevention Campaign and the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) Program. In 1998, earmarked funds represented approximately 80 percent of the total Byrne discretionary funds appropriated to BJA. The remaining discretionary funds were used to continue existing demonstration programs, establish new programs, or establish or continue technical assistance programs that address the needs of the states and local jurisdictions. Local Law Enforcement Block Grants The Local Law Enforcement Block Grants (LLEBG) Program provides units of local government with funds to underwrite projects designed to reduce crime and improve public safety. Under the statutory provisions of the LLEBG Program, BJA sets aside funds to be awarded directly to units of local government within a state. The remaining funds in each state are distributed to individual programs and agencies by the state agency designated to administer the funds. The amounts awarded are proportionate to a state's average annual number of Part I violent crimes that have been reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation compared with the average for all other states for the three most recent calendar years. However, each state receives a minimum award of 0.25 percent of the total amount available for formula distribution. By law, projects under this program must be funded in accordance with the following purpose areas: supporting law enforcement, enhancing security measures in and around schools, establishing or supporting drug courts, enhancing the adjudication of violent offenders, establishing multijurisdictional law enforcement task forces, enhancing crime prevention programs, and defraying the costs of indemnification insurance. Earmarked Funds and Special Programs BJA administers several programs that are not funded through the funding streams described above. Each fiscal year, Congress places line items in BJA's appropriation for other special initiatives. These line items include funding for the Regional Information Sharing Systems Program, the National White Collar Crime Center, the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, the Watch Your Car Program, the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program, and the new Bulletproof Vest Partnership Program. In addition, BJA partners with other federal agencies to administer grant programs on their behalf. For example, BJA receives funds from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to award grants under the State Identification Systems Formula Grant Program. Section II An Overview of Fiscal Year 1998 Activities The Bureau of Justice Assistance supports a wide range of efforts to strengthen the nation's criminal justice system. In fiscal year (FY) 1998, BJA's work focused on assisting state and local criminal justice strategies in the following critical areas: reorganizing BJA to better serve state and local constituents; building state and local partnerships for community justice; facilitating innovation, access to justice, and system balance; building state and local capacity for strategic planning; creating a comprehensive and effective justice system; and communicating with the field. ------------------------------- BJA's 1998 Themes o Reorganizing BJA to better serve state and local constituents. o Building state and local partnerships for community justice. o Facilitating innovation, access to justice, and system balance. o Building state and local capacity for strategic planning. o Creating a comprehensive and effective justice system. o Communicating with the field. ------------------------------- Reorganizing BJA To Better Serve State and Local Constituents An important BJA objective in 1998 was reorganizing its staff and resources to give local administrators a single point of contact within the Bureau to serve as a true planning partner. A major part of this effort was merging the Byrne Formula Grant Program Division with the Local Law Enforcement Block Grants Program Division to form a single, expanded State and Local Assistance Division. The reorganization has given the staff of this new division the ability to focus more of their attention on the unique funding and technical assistance needs of individual states and communities. Staff can more rapidly identify and respond to emerging trends in the field and better manage complex programs. Moreover, they can better nurture innovative efforts at the local level and foster the sharing of these promising solutions across jurisdictions. A second new division, the Program Development Division, seeks out emerging problems in the field and nurtures promising solutions as they grow into feasible demonstration projects. A critical part of this division's work is sponsoring pilot studies of initiatives to determine whether these strategies can be replicated in other communities. Building state and local Partnerships for Community Justice Building partnerships between justice agencies and the communities they serve is a cornerstone of BJA. Among BJA's important efforts in FY 1998 was supporting locally directed strategies to revitalize neighborhoods. These initiatives emphasized using community mobilization not only to reduce crime, violence, and drug abuse but also to improve residents' quality of life. Community-based strategies funded by BJA, including the Comprehensive Communities Program (CCP) and the Tribal Strategies Against Violence initiative, have demonstrated that strategic community planning works when it is comprehensive and coordinated with state and federal resources. The 16 cities participating in CCP in 1998 focused on crime prevention and control, but they integrated a wide range of responses into their strategies, including youth and gang initiatives, dispute resolution, community prosecution, drug courts, and alternatives to prosecution. BJA worked closely with local criminal justice practitioners in FY 1998 to put the concept of community justice into practice at each stage of the criminal justice process. Police-community partnerships have had a dramatic impact in neighborhoods throughout the country, and BJA is now focusing on building community partnerships with courts, public defenders, and corrections agencies. To help these agencies, BJA continued funding for long-term strategies to build community prosecution programs and community courts through which police officers, prosecutors, public defenders, elected officials, and community leaders can work together to improve public safety. These initiatives are finding innovative ways to link local justice agencies to the community. Facilitating Innovation, Access to Justice, and System Balance FY 1998 marked the second year of BJA's Open Solicitation Grant Program. Through the program, BJA encourages state, local, and tribal governments to identify emerging or chronic criminal justice problems in their communities and propose innovative strategies to address those problems. BJA solicits brief concept papers in broad discretionary funding categories that reflect local priorities. Applicants are urged to reach out within their communities and build partnerships with schools, social service agencies, private organizations, and other institutions that have a stake in creating safe and vibrant neighborhoods. BJA created the program to open the grant-funding process to as many jurisdictions as possible, particularly rural and tribal communities that historically have had difficulty accessing federal and state criminal justice funds. BJA received more than 1,300 concept papers in response to the 1998 Open Solicitation in the following topic areas: o Restoring community justice. o Using law enforcement partnerships to address hate crimes. o Addressing criminal justice challenges for rural and tribal communities. o Improving criminal justice responses to senior citizens. o Addressing the role of alcohol and crime. o Improving indigent defense services. o Breaking the cultural barriers to justice. o Enhancing public safety with nontraditional uses of prosecution. o Building public health and criminal justice partnerships. o Meeting local priorities. BJA selected 32 proposals for awards of up to $150,000. The majority of grants will cover a period of 18 months. Applications came from each of the 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. Nearly 30 percent had never sought help from the U.S. Department of Justice, 20 percent had never sought federal support, and only 2 percent had participated in last year's Open Solicitation. About half of the applicants submitted concept papers proposing multiple-agency partnerships, and the majority of the concept papers (95 percent) represented new ideas for federal support in the justice arena. ------------------------------- Highlights of FY 1998 Open Solicitation o Solicitation announcements were mailed to more than 40,000 state, local, and tribal government agencies. o More than 1,300 concept papers were submitted to BJA. o Nearly a quarter of the concept papers were submitted by agencies such as municipal, family service, and public housing organizations that historically have had difficulty accessing federal funds. o Locally defined priorities and restoring community justice were the most commonly chosen topic areas, followed by improving criminal justice responses to senior citizens and building public health-criminal justice collaborations. o The most frequently proposed strategies for reducing crime were preventing juvenile crime and gangs and establishing partnerships between communities and police departments. ------------------------------- In addition, BJA issued three targeted solicitations in FY 1998 that were an outgrowth of BJA's regional partnership meetings, feedback from the Open Solicitation, and direction from the Attorney General. The solicitations addressed the pressing issues of improving indigent defense management and technology, overcoming barriers to implementing community courts, and bolstering community prosecution efforts. Built into all of these grants is technical assistance for grantees on collecting and analyzing data that show progress toward the project's goals. In this way, successful new approaches can be sustained locally and shared with other jurisdictions. BJA also worked in FY 1998 to open the justice system to historically underserved constituents. These constituents include rural and tribal justice systems, senior citizens, young victims and offenders, and victims of hate crimes. Among the many initiatives BJA supported to help these special populations were TRIAD, a national program to reduce elderly victimization; training and technical assistance to local prosecutors and law enforcement to stop telemarketing fraud against the elderly; Tribal Strategies Against Violence, a federal-tribal partnership to combat crime, violence, and substance abuse on reservations; technical assistance to help tribal courts address violent crime against children, domestic violence, and youth gang violence in Indian communities; a summit for policymakers and law enforcement officials on hate crimes; national programs, such as the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, that provide alternatives to drugs and life on the streets; a public education campaign to prevent teen-dating violence that featured the powerful documentary, It Ain't Love; and public service announcements that focused on investing in youth through mentoring and volunteerism. Building state and local Capacity for Strategic Planning An important part of the assistance BJA provides to states and local communities is building capacity for strategic planning. Local strategic planning works best when it is comprehensive and coordinated with state and federal resources. Uncoordinated planning results in either unnecessary duplication of, or gaps in, programs. To help states and localities understand and use planning processes more effectively, BJA funded several comprehensive technical assistance initiatives in FY 1998. Through planning partnerships with Byrne State Administrative Agencies (SAAs), BJA promoted the integration of state and local criminal justice strategies that emphasize collaboration, resource sharing, and the balanced delivery of criminal justice services. This initiative included an assessment of how states integrate local crime prevention and control into their strategic plans and the degree to which states take an active role in planning and implementing community-based programs. BJA also worked with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the other offices of the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) in FY 1998 to help states better coordinate the funding and technical assistance they receive from federal initiatives, including the Byrne and LLEBG programs, juvenile accountability initiatives, and other DOJ and OJP grant programs. In another important planning partnership, BJA worked with the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the National Crime Prevention Council to host training sessions for teams of municipal and community leaders. The training emphasized ways to link state and local strategic planning to federal resources such as U.S. Attorneys. BJA also partnered in FY 1998 with the Executive Office for Weed and Seed and the Office for Victims of Crime to help grantees meet the critical challenge of finding resources to sustain their programs after federal funding ends. ------------------------------- BJA FY 1998 Enacted Funding Levels Program--------------------------------------Funding Justice Assistance: Regional Information Sharing Systems-----$20,000,000 National White Collar Crime Center-----5,350,000 Local Firefighter/Emergency Services Training-----5,000,000 Terrorism Training-----2,000,000 State and Local Law Enforcement: Byrne Formula Grants-----505,000,000 Byrne Discretionary Grants-----46,500,000 Public Safety Officers' Benefits Discretionary--Education Benefits-----2,000,000 Discretionary--Death Benefits-----31,003,000 Local Law Enforcement Block Grants-----523,000,000 State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP)-----420,000,000 Transfer From State Corrections Program to SCAAP-----165,000,000 Telemarketing Fraud Prevention-----2,500,000 Motor Vehicle Theft Prevention-----750,000 Grants for Televised Testimony-----1,000,000 Total-----$1,729,103,000 ------------------------------- Creating a Comprehensive and Effective Justice System Many of the initiatives BJA supports are designed to help the justice system operate more cohesively as offenders, victims, witnesses, and other participants pass through its various components. These initiatives provide training and technical assistance to law enforcement departments, pretrial services agencies, prosecutor and indigent defense offices, courts, and corrections and supervision services nationwide. In FY 1998, BJA began several new efforts to assist small and mid-sized jurisdictions, which comprise more than 90 percent of the criminal justice agencies in the United States. The most far-reaching of these efforts is the Bulletproof Vest Partnership, an unprecedented collaboration of BJA with six federal agencies to give law enforcement agencies a powerful new tool to save the lives of their officers. BJA and its partners established a Web site for the program (opening in 1999) through which agencies around the country can establish eligibility and order vests at 50 percent of their normal cost. At least half of the program's funds will support governments serving fewer than 100,000 residents. Creating a comprehensive justice system requires ensuring that the various components of the system share vital information. In FY 1998, BJA continued its substantial investment in technology and information systems initiatives that are helping state and local jurisdictions complete this process. A major project helped isolated rural law enforcement keep pace with rapid technological change by providing Internet access, guidance on Internet-based resources, and a wide range of support on using new technologies. Other important initiatives in this area included the Regional Information Sharing Systems, a network of regional centers that shares intelligence on criminal organizations operating across jurisdictional lines; the National White Collar Crime Center, which provides a national support system for law enforcement agencies in their fight against economic crime; and the State Identification Systems Formula Grant Program, which gives states resources to develop or improve their computerized offender identification systems and to integrate those systems with the FBI's system. Finally, BJA's work in FY 1998 to improve each facet of the nation's justice system included giving state and local jurisdictions the tools and expertise to ensure that these efforts are producing measurable results. In FY 1998, BJA offered indepth evaluation assistance through the Electronic Roadmap for Evaluation, an interactive site on the BJA Web page that provides step-by-step instructions for planning, designing, and conducting evaluations of state and local criminal justice programs. BJA also supported states' efforts to evaluate the performance and outcomes of their programs through the State Evaluation Development Program and the Byrne Evaluation Partnership Program. Additionally, BJA funded 16 national evaluation projects through the BJA-NIJ Evaluation Partnership. ------------------------------- BJA Funding in Focus: The Bulletproof Vest Partnership The Bulletproof Vest Partnership (BVP) was created in 1998 to save the lives of law enforcement officers by equipping them with armored vests. BJA, working closely with other federal agencies, administers the program entirely through the Internet, giving state, local, and tribal governments a powerful new tool to protect their officers. This extraordinary new funding mechanism is unprecedented in its potential reach and ease of use. Other members of BVP are the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, the Office of Justice Programs, the National Institute of Justice, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. ------------------------------- Communicating With the Field BJA continued its emphasis on communicating vital information about criminal justice with practitioners. Many initiatives focused on supporting teams of community leaders to develop coordinated planning strategies. BJA worked steadily to collect needs assessments from local and state jurisdictions, and BJA's regional conferences brought the agency staff to the field to listen to local administrators and grantees. BJA's State and Local Partnership Meetings, facilitated by the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA), were conducted in Austin, Honolulu, Louisville, Oakland, Providence, and Savannah. At these landmark meetings, more than 400 criminal justice practitioners, including state formula grant administrators, state and local grantees, BJA program staff, and speakers on key topics, met to share their perspectives on how federal assistance can best support their work. BJA also sponsored a series of policy briefings in FY 1998 that used peer-to-peer mentoring to help grant administrators set priorities and plan for developments in grant programming. In September, BJA sponsored a conference in New York City on the Future of the Criminal Courts. The conference, attended by work groups from 28 states, explored how the courts are being changed by emerging concepts such as community justice, particularly in the areas of court administration, indigent defense, and community participation. Another successful mentoring effort was spearheaded by the Center for Court Innovation, which helped communities around the country establish community courts similar to the Midtown Community Court in Manhattan. BJA's information dissemination efforts continued to grow in FY 1998 and involved traditional publishing, electronic dissemination through the BJA and National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Web sites, and mass media public education campaigns. In fiscal year 1998, BJA published more than 50 documents, including monographs, special reports, bulletins, fact sheets, and application kits, and distributed more than 400,000 documents nationwide. (See appendixes, page 61, for the full list of BJA publications released in FY 1998.) During that same period, nearly 400,000 documents were viewed online through the BJA World Wide Web home page. Section III FY 1998 Support to State and Local Justice Systems Empowering Communities To Prevent Crime At the heart of BJA's mission to reduce crime and violence in America is building safer, healthier communities. At the heart of building safer, healthier communities is the simple act of bringing people together who want secure neighborhoods, streets, and schools. Historically, community-based programs have sought to improve economic development, serve youth, and foster better social services and health care. Not until the 1990s has comprehensive community planning targeted crime. The widespread positive impact of community policing initiatives in the past decade has demonstrated the strong connection between community mobilization and crime prevention. And as police roles have changed, so too have the roles of other government institutions as they recognized that communities must take a greater leadership role in combating crime. In FY 1998, BJA funding for crime prevention emphasized building and sustaining these critical community-based partnerships. In particular, BJA used crime prevention grants to encourage coordination and resource sharing among law enforcement, prosecutors, public defenders, the courts, elected officials, and respected institutions in the community such as churches, businesses, schools, and neighborhood associations. A valuable lesson from the Comprehensive Communities Program (CCP) was that communities use their resources more effectively when they have time and a forum to diagnose and prioritize their crime and quality-of-life problems. BJA and the National Criminal Justice Association began integrating a variety of community-based partnership initiatives in 1998 that have a proven record of comprehensive planning and strategic implementation. These efforts, begun under different auspices such as Weed and Seed, CCP, Communities That Care, and Tribal Strategies Against Violence, took shape independent of broader state planning, resulting in duplication of or gaps in service delivery. BJA is addressing this lack of coordination through the Statewide Communities Initiative (SCI), which promotes local involvement in statewide criminal justice planning. SCI is based on planning efforts under way in Colorado, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and BJA plans to expand the initiative to four additional states. A second community-based project funded by BJA in FY 1998, the Collaborative Rural Jurisdiction Program, is an extension of the CCP concept to communities with populations of 50,000 or less. This initiative brings stakeholders together to list their most significant crime problems and fashion a strategy to target them. Planning grants were given to 10 sites in North Carolina and Virginia. Technical assistants, who were formerly CCP site coordinators, served as advisers on the project and were matched to sites according to their areas of expertise, such as use of citizen councils. BJA also continued its support of the National Night Out (NNO) initiative. This year-long campaign builds community-police relationships; strengthens comprehensive community partnerships; and helps develop prevention initiatives against local crime, violence, and drug problems. Since its inception in 1984, NNO has grown to involve more than 30 million people in communities across the United States and around the world. The National Association of Town Watch (NATW) provides support for NNO by disseminating information and materials and giving technical assistance to agencies, units of government, civic and neighborhood organizations, and residents. The Boys and Girls Clubs of America (B&GCA) has given millions of boys and girls in urban, rural, and American Indian and Alaska Native settings an opportunity to lead productive lives through its time-tested outreach strategies. B&GCA provides safe havens from negative influences on the street; guidance, discipline, and role models through caring adult leaders; constructive youth development activities; access to comprehensive, coordinated services that meet the complex needs of at-risk youth; educational support and an awareness of career options; and a vision of life beyond bleak circumstances. Formed in 1906, B&GCA has grown from 53 clubs to more than 2,000 clubs in all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. BJA's support of this important national program in 1998 helped B&GCA establish new clubs with an emphasis on violence prevention outreach in distressed neighborhoods such as public housing developments and Indian reservations. BJA also worked in 1998 to help clubs coordinate their activities with communitywide violence and substance abuse prevention campaigns. Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) is the nation's predominant school-based drug abuse and violence prevention program. More than 8,600 law enforcement agencies now work in the school systems with the D.A.R.E. curriculum. In FY 1998, BJA funding of D.A.R.E. supported the updating of the D.A.R.E. curriculum and the operation of five regional D.A.R.E. officer training centers. BJA funding also supported D.A.R.E. mentor training for police officers, D.A.R.E. training for instructors who work with parents, D.A.R.E. training for junior and senior high school students, the accreditation of law enforcement agencies as D.A.R.E. training centers, and the monitoring of technical assistance to agencies that are replicating the program. BJA also supports a variety of community-based crime prevention projects through the National Citizens' Crime Prevention Campaign, a nationwide effort sponsored by the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC). BJA's partnership with NCPC has broadened enormously since the first McGruff public service media campaign in 1980. The partnership now includes the production and dissemination of television, radio, and print public service announcements, a full range of prevention support materials, outreach and information sharing on the World Wide Web, national and regional conferences for adults and youth, and technical assistance and training workshops. ------------------------------- BJA Funding in Focus: Multijurisdictional Task Forces American Samoa: Joint task force on public corruption--Cooperative investigations, case management procedures, staff training in financial crimes, and recovery of government and financial institution assets. Arizona: Sixteen multijurisdictional drug/violent crime/gang task forces-- 1,850 drug trafficking arrests and seizure of 95,023 pounds of marijuana; 154 pounds of methamphetamine; 2,169 pounds of cocaine; 1,575 grams of heroin; and 198,147 dosage units of other drugs such as LSD and PCP. California: Anti-drug abuse task force active in 58 counties--9,602 drug-related convictions; 313 pounds of marijuana seized; 1,363 illegal laboratories dismantled; and 4,451 weapons seized. Colorado: Multijurisdictional drug task force--Seizure of methamphetamine labs increased by 42 percent, arrests for violent offenses increased by 16 percent, arrests for cultivation of drugs increased by 15 percent, and arrests for transportation of drugs decreased 70 percent. Delaware: Videophone attorney task force--Detention and time until case resolution reduced by 10 percent; transportation costs reduced. District of Columbia: Information and system technology improvement task force--Developed online sentencing resource program and connected offender supervision agencies. Florida: Task force to enhance evidence collection for domestic violence prosecution--Enabled online processing of statements and photos. ------------------------------- Through BJA grants to NCPC, approximately $1.5 million was spent during FY 1998 to produce public service, television, radio, and print messages directed at adults, teens, and preteens. According to the Ad Council, this investment generated $128 million in donated media time and space. This far exceeds the average Ad Council public service campaign, which receives about $26 million in donated media time and space. NCPC's National Conference on Crime Prevention, held in Washington, D.C., in 1998, was attended by more than 1,400 justice professionals, community leaders, and youth. At the conference's 60 workshops, representatives of law enforcement agencies, justice system agencies, community organizations, schools, and citizens' associations built trust; shared strategic information on crime prevention; and examined best practices for preventing crime, violence, and drug use. Additionally, BJA worked with NCPC in 1998 to distribute free booklets to youth on violence and substance abuse. Through this campaign, more than 100,000 copies of the popular Adventures of McGruff & Scruff in Indian Country were distributed at no cost to schools. Other titles included Safer Schools: Strategies for Educators and Law Enforcement; More Adventures With Scruff, in which McGruff's nephew deals with bullies, weapons, and finding safe havens; and Lessons from Indian Country, which uses authentic tribal stories to illustrate the dangers of alcohol, bad companionship, and vandalism and shows children how to seek help when they are being abused. Also in 1998, an extensive public service advertising campaign, "Investing in Youth for a Safer Future," was launched. In 1998 BJA and NCPC, in cooperation with the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Demand Reduction Section, initiated The Cutting Edge seminar series. Hosted by U.S. Attorneys, these seminars identified and shared information on successful comprehensive public safety initiatives; developed strategic planning and communication within and between jurisdictions; and interactively helped municipal and community leaders leverage the support, tools, and human resources they needed to implement more comprehensive justice initiatives. BJA also conducted the 10th Annual National Training Conference for Criminal Justice and Community Leaders in partnership with NCPC, Fox Valley Technical College, and the Green Bay, Wisconsin, Multijurisdictional Law Enforcement Conference Committee. The conference was attended by more than 500 elected officials; business and community leaders; law enforcement practitioners; judges; and state, local, and tribal planners, who used the forum to discuss how systemwide strategic plans can help communities better prevent crime, violence, and substance abuse. Supporting Law Enforcement BJA's FY 1998 funding and technical assistance for law enforcement continued to support the vital work of police and other public safety agencies in a wide range of prevention and enforcement efforts. Many of these efforts were made possible through problem-solving collaborations that have reached across jurisdictional boundaries and challenged traditional notions of what law enforcement should entail. An important area of collaboration supported in FY 1998 was the creation and training of multijurisdictional task forces. Training was conducted in various regions of the country to enhance the operational and administrative skills of multijurisdictional task force commanders and administrators. The training sessions, which included a special focus on methamphetamine trafficking, were sponsored by the Center for Task Force Training (CenTF) and each region's U.S. Attorney or Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS) center. BJA also continued its successful training program for Model Clandestine Laboratory Enforcement. Unlike programs that address law enforcement operations, this training and technical assistance effort concentrates on multiagency, multidisciplined strategic responses to clandestine laboratories and related criminal activities. Because of the hazards associated with clandestine laboratories, investigations of such labs often require complex coordination of local health and emergency services personnel working in concert with law enforcement agencies. Teamwork and a strategic response plan are critical to the success of an investigation, and BJA's technical assistance helps local law enforcement develop successful partnerships. To prevent motor vehicle theft, which costs U.S. citizens more than $7.5 million each year, BJA continued funding the Watch Your Car Program. This innovative program uses specially designed decals and other deterrents to reduce car theft by alerting police to investigate a vehicle that is not normally driven in late night and early morning hours or near international land borders or ports. States participating in the program make a rigorous study of their motor vehicle theft problem and develop a detailed prevention plan, which they coordinate with private-sector agencies. Information about vehicles' owners, authorized drivers, and registration is stored in a state database accessible to law enforcement officials. Early in FY 1998, BJA published a bulletin on the successes of the Illegal Firearms Trafficking Program, a collaborative nationwide effort of the Police Executive Research Forum and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to reduce weapons trafficking. The program, developed initially as a response to firearms trafficking along the U.S. Interstate 95 corridor, helps officers better understand and use federal, state, and local firearms laws and ordinances to combat violent crime. Working closely with this nationwide effort is the BJA-sponsored Illegal Firearms Trafficking Technical Assistance Program. Provided by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), this technical assistance helps state and local law enforcement agencies establish firearms trafficking and investigations units. Trainees in the program visit the ATF firearms tracing center in West Virginia and learn how to use ATF's Project LEAD, a computer-based system for gathering and analyzing information on illegally trafficked firearms, recovered firearms, and firearms used in crime. With this assistance, officers and administrators can form a strategic picture of illegal firearms trafficking in their own jurisdictions. Another training program offered through IACP advises local and regional law enforcement officials in methods of handling criminal aliens. This partnership effort, conducted in cooperation with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), hosts symposiums on immigration and deportation issues and other options available to law enforcement for dealing with criminal aliens. A notable accomplishment of the program in 1998 was the Southwest Border Conference for law enforcement administrators and prosecutors on new federal statutes regarding criminal aliens. Additionally, BJA began supporting security planning for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah. Numerous federal agencies, including the FBI and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, are cooperating in the project, which will develop and implement a comprehensive, master security plan. According to a recent survey of federal, state, and local law enforcement and emergency management officials, the majority of jurisdictions in the country need updated contingency plans and training programs for responding to civil disorders. A national working group led by BJA was formed in FY 1998 to guide this effort. This working group, which comprises federal, state, and local emergency management officials and fire and police training experts, is coordinating planning for a new model response plan and training curriculum to be tested and completed in FY 1999. Increasingly, the work of the nation's courts is being disrupted by violence and threats of violence. Through the National Sheriffs' Association and in partnership with the U.S. Marshals Service and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, BJA established a national training program in FY 1998 to introduce contemporary risk management procedures to state and local criminal justice officials, court administrators, and court officers. To assess the needs of sheriffs and police chiefs in small, rural communities, the National Center for Rural Law Enforcement at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, Arkansas, provided training and technical assistance on best practices in investigative case management, use of Internet resources, and coordination of complex prosecutions. In a similar vein, the IACP Small Jurisdictions Technical Assistance Program, sponsored by the National Law Enforcement Policy Center and facilitated by IACP, continued its assistance to small rural and tribal jurisdictions. Many small or middle-sized agencies do not have a formal policy arm for monitoring and reacting to national legislation. This project establishes model law enforcement policies that state and local agencies can adopt and modify to meet their jurisdiction's needs. Supporting Innovation in Adjudication Problem-solving partnerships that reach out to the community have transformed how we view policing and crime prevention. This approach is driving a series of innovative efforts to involve the community in the adjudication system. These initiatives thrive on bringing communities, courts, prosecutors, public defenders, and service providers together to improve the sense of safety and well-being in communities. In FY 1998, BJA supported a variety of adjudication initiatives that moved courts and prosecutors beyond simply processing cases. BJA continued its work with the Center for Court Innovation to establish the Midtown Community Court and the Community Justice Center in New York and to help other communities plan and start their own community courts. BJA also continued funding the American Prosecutors Research Institute to support the planning and implementation of community prosecution programs around the country. A critical goal for adjudication funding in FY 1998 was supporting the formation of adjudication partnerships that include prosecution, defense, and the court, as well as other agencies, such as law enforcement and corrections, with important roles in the adjudication process. Adjudication partnerships are valuable catalysts not only to solve specific problems (for example, a need for pretrial diversion) but to overcome agency turf issues to improve the justice system's overall effectiveness. In FY 1998, BJA-sponsored adjudication partnerships were formed in a number of jurisdictions. Each partnership operates through a set of specific administrative and budgetary agreements, reached outside the courtroom and distinctive to each jurisdiction, concerning what is necessary for the effective administration of justice. In related projects, the National Judicial College continued its community justice scholarship program to educate state, local, and tribal judges and court administrators, and the National Center for State Courts in Reno, Nevada, began an extensive study of how courts can communicate to the public more effectively and build community-focused programs. For FY 1998, BJA asked the National Judicial College to develop a curricula on the principles and methods supporting drug courts, community courts, and tribal justice systems. The college also developed technical assistance and training for judges who handle juveniles who have been transferred to adult criminal courts. A significant accomplishment during the year was the convening of an advisory group from diverse disciplines to explore common concerns in the difficult issue of meeting juvenile needs in adult settings. BJA's FY 1998 adjudication funding also included a substantial investment in indigent defense. BJA and the Bureau of Justice Statistics collected information for the National Survey of Indigent Defense Systems--an exhaustive study of indigent defenders' caseload levels, policies, practices, and procedures. In addition, BJA worked to strengthen indigent defense systems by providing training to indigent defense managers on developing a more active role in their jurisdiction's criminal justice system. Technical assistance was also funded for prosecutors who work with juveniles charged as adults and indigent offenders. ------------------------------- BJA Funding in Focus: Adjudication Partnerships (Please see PDF file) ------------------------------- Managing Offenders Under Supervision BJA funding for supervision services in FY 1998 emphasized innovative sanctioning for less dangerous offenders and better coordination and matching of services for correctional populations both in prison and on supervised release. All BJA-supported correctional options projects have four basic goals: reducing incarceration costs, relieving prison and jail crowding, reducing recidivism rates, and advancing innovative correctional practices. BJA coordinates this work with national professional associations, such as the American Correctional Association (ACA), the American Probation and Parole Association, and the National Institute of Corrections (NIC), and with other federal agencies including the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the Corrections Program Office (CPO) of the Department of Justice. BJA's Correctional Options Demonstration Program has shown that prudently managed, cost-conscious correctional interventions involve key stakeholders from the outset, target services and supervision to a well-defined group of offenders, create individual case management plans that reflect risks and interventions, cultivate broad public support, and carry out ongoing monitoring and evaluation. Since the mid-1970s, correctional practices at all levels have improved significantly in response to professional standards. More than 1,100 correctional agencies and facilities are now working to implement the ACA standards, which encompass all aspects of correctional services. The ACA standards were first published 20 years ago with the support and assistance of the Department of Justice. In FY 1998, a major BJA initiative in this area was the development of performance-based standards for community corrections. These standards will be disseminated to the field to guide jurisdictions' evaluation efforts. This project is a cooperative effort of ACA, CPO, NIC, and the National Committee on Community Corrections. BJA is also an active participant on the Advisory Board for NIC's collaboration on community corrections and release, which seeks to examine difficult topics such as offender mental health issues. One conclusion from BJA's support of alternative sanctions programs is that, while one approach does not fit every situation, successful jurisdictions have used strategic planning to incorporate lessons learned from federally funded demonstrations. Federal help in forming partnerships at the local level, for example, has allowed local governments to focus on best practices and benefit from BJA's investment in finding new solutions for the corrections field. BJA published a summary of recent innovations in the June 1998 monograph, Programs in Correctional Settings: Innovative State and Local Programs. Another major corrections effort in FY 1998 was BJA's assistance to the Prison Industries Enhancement (PIE) Certification Program. PIE certification allows states and local governments to establish employment opportunities for prisoners that approximate work in the private sector. Inmates must be paid the prevailing wage in that industry and can choose to make deductions from their pay for purposes such as supporting family members and paying victim restitution. In FY 1998, BJA coordinated the revision of federal regulations for PIE certification to clarify statutory changes that have taken place since the initial guidelines were developed in 1985. This comprehensive document is planned for release in FY 1999. A new 3-year coordination effort, sponsored by several DOJ offices including BJA, CPO, and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), seeks to improve states' abilities to respond to the wide impact of truth-in-sentencing and violent-offender-incarceration legislation at the state level. In cooperation with the Office of Alternative Sanctions (OAS) in Connecticut, BJA also supported a full array of sanctions for use by judges that takes into account the seriousness of the offense and the record of the offender. One component of this effort, Connecticut's Alternatives to Incarceration Centers (AICs), allows quicker and more meaningful sanctions for youthful offenders who present a low risk for violence. AICs are one of eight options through which OAS has provided supervision to more than 50,000 accused and sentenced offenders. The highly visible community service component of OAS programs has improved communities through projects such as building playgrounds on vacant lots, picking up trash, and maintaining state park areas. Public support for this effort was strengthened when voters were shown that this program saves taxpayers $25,000 per year per offender. ------------------------------- BJA Funding in Focus: Making Courts More Effective o Criminal justice planning commissions in California, Georgia, Kentucky, and Nebraska have reduced trial delays; developed community-based alternatives to incarceration; increased funding for public defenders; created bar association councils on indigent defense; and promoted public defender-supported local advocacy for and community responses to domestic violence. o Cooperative funding (Byrne, Violence Against Women Act, and Juvenile Justice Title V Prevention) to the Delaware Criminal Justice Council supports a statewide videoconferencing system to expedite warrant processing, bail hearings, arraignments, evidentiary hearings, and inmate motions. o Nebraska's 36-member task force on indigent defense has brought state support to defense services in 93 counties. The task force collects data on systems, arrest charges, case processing, and guidelines. o The State Justice Institute project in Oregon and Washington brings together representatives from legislative, judicial, and executive branches and members of the defense counsel and the private bar to address statewide growth in costs and caseloads for indigent defense. o Joint prosecutor and public defender unions in California and Minnesota are ensuring salary parity between the two groups of attorneys. In California, district attorneys have threatened to strike to help public defenders block pay cuts. o Cooperative case tracking and criminal history systems, developed cooperatively in Florida, have linked information systems for the circuit court clerk, state attorney, and public defender. o Delaware and Rhode Island are developing statewide criminal justice data sharing to eliminate duplicate data entry and automate criminal court calendars. ------------------------------- Making the Justice System More Responsive to Victims of Crime BJA funded a variety of efforts in FY 1998 to support and protect victims of crime. These initiatives sought to raise awareness of the special needs of victims of hate crime, family violence, and violence against the elderly. A priority for FY 1998 was working with the White House and other DOJ offices to help states and local jurisdictions aggressively respond to hate crimes. Early in fiscal year 1998, BJA participated in the first White House Conference on Hate Crimes, held in Washington, D.C. More than 350 leaders from law enforcement, civil rights, youth, education, and religious organizations joined the President, Vice President, Attorney General, and Members of the Cabinet to examine what communities and local governments were doing to prevent hate crimes. To help states stop hate-motivated church arson, BJA sponsored a series of training conferences in 13 states that were awarded grants under the Church Arson Prevention Grant Program. The conferences were coordinated with each state's Governor and conducted in cooperation with the National Sheriffs' Association (NSA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the Community Relations Service. Additionally, BJA established a federal source of training and technical assistance to help local communities as they develop and implement church arson prevention programs. ------------------------------- BJA Funding in Focus: Fighting Hate in America's Communities In 1998, the Attorney General wrote in a letter to the criminal justice community that the primary responsibility for hate crime investigation begins with dedicated state and local law enforcement officials. The Department of Justice will provide a critical resource for these officials, she wrote, by sponsoring training that will help them develop the specialized skills they need to identify, report, investigate, and prosecute hate crimes. As part of this comprehensive DOJ initiative to address hate crime, BJA supported two major initiatives in FY 1998: o The first-ever White House Conference on Hate Crimes, a day-long event convened by the President on November 10, 1997, in Washington, D.C. At the conference, state and local leaders examined the positive actions that communities are taking to prevent hate crimes, and the President announced significant law enforcement and prevention initiatives to get tough on hate crimes. The President, Vice President, Attorney General, and Secretary of Education were joined by Members of Congress, state and local officials, and approximately 350 leaders from law enforcement, civil rights, youth, education, and religious communities. o A series of training conferences in the 13 states that were awarded grants in FY 1996 under the Church Arson Prevention Grant Program. The conferences were coordinated with each state's Governor and conducted in cooperation with the National Sheriffs' Association, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the Community Relations Service. ------------------------------- A key effort in BJA's work to assist senior citizens struggling with crime problems is the TRIAD program, cosponsored by NSA, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). At the county level, TRIAD is a three-way effort among sheriffs, police chiefs, and seniors to exchange information, alleviate unwarranted fears, and improve the delivery of law enforcement services to seniors. Nationally administered by NSA, TRIAD sponsors regional training conferences for law enforcement; strengthens community crime prevention; educates residents and church, business, and community leaders about elder abuse; helps law enforcement, advocates, and service providers identify and assist elderly victims of crime; and implements reassurance programs for home-bound and isolated elders. More than 436 TRIADs are now active in 46 states, Canada, and England. To combat the estimated 14,000 illegal telemarketing operations that yearly bilk U.S. citizens of some $40 billion, BJA continued its work with the Telemarketing Fraud Training Task Force, a multi-agency committee coordinated by the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG). Other members of the task force include the National District Attorneys Association, the American Prosecutors Research Institute, the National White Collar Crime Center, and AARP. Among many prevention and enforcement activities in FY 1998, the task force developed critically needed telemarketing fraud curricula and training for state and local investigators and prosecutors. BJA also offered, in coordination with NAAG, technical assistance for state attorneys general to stop health care fraud. The Public Safety Officers' Benefits (PSOB) Program, administered directly by BJA, provides financial benefits to families of federal, state, and local law enforcement; public rescue and ambulance crew members; firefighters; and public safety officers killed or permanently and totally disabled in the line of duty. In FY 1998, PSOB staff streamlined and automated the PSOB case-processing system. The office handles about 250 claims each year. The automated system has improved workflow, dramatically reduced delays in the program's appeals process, and aided the analysis of information used in public safety officer training to prevent line-of-duty deaths and disabilities in the field. Additionally, through the Federal Law Enforcement Defendants Assistance (FLEDA) Program, BJA provided financial support for higher education to the spouses and children of federal law enforcement officers killed or permanently and totally disabled in the line of duty. ------------------------------- BJA Funding in Focus: Stopping Telemarketing Fraud Each year an estimated 14,000 illegal telemarketing operations bilk U.S. citizens of at least $40 billion. These operations relentlessly target senior citizens. Surveys by the American Association of Retired Persons have found that more than half of telemarketing fraud victims are aged 50 or older. BJA supports a two-pronged approach to telemarketing fraud that emphasizes both prevention and enforcement. In FY 1998, BJA funded the following telemarketing fraud initiatives: o $1.5 million to the National Association of Attorneys General to support the work of the Telemarketing Fraud Training Task Force, a multiagency committee with responsibility for planning and providing criminal law training to state attorneys general, district attorneys, and investigators. o $900,000 to the American Prosecutors Research Institute to develop a comprehensive telemarketing prevention and enforcement training program for state and local law enforcement officials. o $450,000 to the National White Collar Crime Center to facilitate multistate investigations of economic crimes and to coordinate the development of training curricula for state and local investigators. o $184,000 to the American Association of Retired Persons to seek out and develop partners and training participants from state and local law enforcement agencies, aging services providers, and volunteer groups. AARP will use these partners and participants to augment outreach and assistance to older victims and potential victims through education and training materials. o $78,000 to the National Fraud Information Center to collaborate with the National White Collar Crime Center on a project to expand the NFIC database and to develop training curricula for law enforcement and prosecution professionals. NFIC is operated by the National Consumers League, a leader in preventing fraud against the elderly. ------------------------------- Improving Justice Systems in American Indian and Alaska Native Communities Among the most critical assistance BJA provides is that to American Indian and Alaska Native communities. 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 1998 were the Tribal Strategies Against Violence (TSAV) and the Community Analysis and Planning Strategies technical assistance project. TSAV is a federal-tribal partnership to control and prevent crime, violence, criminal gang activities, and substance abuse in Native American communities. A primary focus of the project is the formation of centralized planning teams that represent tribal service providers (law enforcement, prosecution, education, social services, spiritual leaders, and businesses) as well as youth. Using community policing approaches, prevention education, and interventions for domestic abuse and juvenile delinquency, TSAV strengthens the tribes' abilities to address violent crime and substance abuse in culturally appropriate and meaningful ways. The regional Community Analysis and Planning Strategies trainings were begun by BJA in 1998 for tribal leadership and communities with large portions of diverse Native American 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. Despite their high crime rate and high criminal justice system involvement compared with non-native youth, Alaska Native youth have few prevention and early intervention services, particularly in rural communities. To meet this need, BJA funded the Alaska Native Justice Center (ANJC) to establish pilot youth courts in two rural communities. The center will train and give technical assistance to other rural communities based on the experience of the pilot programs and promote the establishment of similar court programs for nonviolent first-time juvenile offenders in other rural Alaskan communities. A second pilot project in the Alaskan courts offered the guidance of cultural navigators to individuals encountering the criminal justice system. These specially trained service providers are fluent in native languages and knowledgeable about native culture; legal services; court procedures; and employment, educational, and social service opportunities. In FY 1998, the Department of Justice invited five Alaska Native advisers to brief DOJ staff on Alaska Native cultural history and contemporary criminal justice problems. The event included a video teleconference question-and-answer session with the Attorney General and tribal leaders. In preparation for the meeting, BJA staff visited numerous isolated villages in Alaska and reported to the Alaska State Attorney General and Cabinet on the justice needs of those areas. A followup survey was prepared and sent to localities to gather suggestions for next steps. In addition, plans were set in motion in FY 1998 to establish an Alaska Native technical assistance center in partnership with the University of Alaska at Anchorage. Through this center, rural villages will receive assistance in identifying and assessing local crime problems. Representatives of selected villages will receive training at the center and then serve as technical assistance staff for other villages. By the end of 3 years, it is hoped that approximately 50 villages will have received assistance from center-trained representatives. A database will be assembled of grant funding and other resources in the state, and the University of Alaska will provide assistance in program assessment and other areas. In Petaluma, California, BJA assisted the National Indian Justice Center in increasing cooperation and coordination among tribal, state, and local courts by examining jurisdictional issues. The Center also provides training and technical assistance to tribal courts to establish systems of justice administration and address family, gang, and youth violence. In New Mexico, the Serious and Violent Native American Youthful Offender project assesses the effect of the current Children's Code and federal statutes on accused and adjudicated Native American youth. The project is drafting proposed amendments to the code and a template to help tribes adjust their own codes to correspond with the full faith and credit provisions between the state of New Mexico and tribes in the state. Technology: Using 21st Century Tools Recent technological breakthroughs have had a dramatic impact on the criminal justice system. Professionals working in law enforcement, prosecution and public defense, the courts, and the corrections system have all benefited from technology's power to make the justice system more efficient and responsive and to link agencies historically separated by jurisdictional and geographical boundaries. BJA's substantial FY 1998 investment in technology sought to make these new tools and integrated information systems accessible to more criminal justice practitioners, particularly in rural communities. From 1986 to 1997, the Regional Information Sharing Systems helped law enforcement officials make more than 76,000 arrests, seize illegal narcotics worth more than $10 billion, and take possession of property controlled by Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) valued at $21 million. The six RISS centers focus on multijurisdictional narcotics trafficking, violent crime, criminal gang activities, and organized crime. RISS members cover the full spectrum of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. During FY 1998, these agencies received a major technological boost with the secure electronic networking of all six RISS centers. RISS information management systems now connect seamlessly to one another on a secure intranet. This has established RISS as a true national criminal intelligence network and marks a new level of intergovernmental cooperation. In 1998 BJA also began work on securing direct access to the RISS network for all member agencies. The RISS centers continued their pioneering collaboration with the FBI to share information critical to multijurisdictional criminal investigations. The RISS-FBI Memorandum of Understanding represents the first time a federal investigative agency at the national level has taken a policy position on RISS participation and partnership. The FBI, as a matter of policy, now regularly participates in the activities of each RISS center and has made the FBI's criminal indices and databases available to RISS member agencies. Similar partnerships are being discussed between the RISS program and other federal agencies. FY 1998 also brought the initiation of RISSGANG, a national gang information database system available to RISS members and nonmember agencies. BJA also continued its collaboration with the FBI to administer the State Identification Systems Formula Grant Fund. Through this fund, BJA supports the process of developing, upgrading, and updating state computerized information systems that are compatible with the FBI's National Crime Information Center. SIS grants are also used to develop states' capacity to analyze DNA in ways compatible with the FBI's Combined DNA Index System and to automate state fingerprint identification systems and make them capable of integration into the FBI's Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Another major information management project funded by BJA in FY 1998 was the National Training and Technical Assistance Program administered by the SEARCH Group. This nationwide initiative provides free assistance to state and local criminal justice agencies seeking to develop, operate, improve, or integrate their information systems. For nonautomated justice agencies, the program helped build state-of-the-art information systems that could improve these agencies' operations and link them for the first time to state and national information networks. For agencies already using computerized information systems, the project focused on integrating their systems and developing a systemwide tool for sharing information. Moreover, BJA funded a series of information management symposiums, conducted by SEARCH, for three groups of criminal justice professionals in FY 1998: executive decisionmakers, middle managers, and technology specialists. The symposiums covered a variety of issues related to sharing information through information systems, with a special emphasis on training multidisciplinary teams representing, for example, the judiciary, State Administrative Agencies, law enforcement, probation, and parole. In some cases, such teams received immediate technical assistance that helped their jurisdiction create a management strategy, plans for information sharing, and performance measures by which to guide their project's implementation. SEARCH also worked with the Conference of State Court Administrators, the National Association for Court Management, and the National Center for State Courts to offer court-specific technical expertise on information system management for courts and related justice agencies. BJA cosponsored the formation of SEARCH's National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics to foster improved and integrated court technology nationwide, under the aegis of the National Task Force on Court Automation and Integration. Since January 1998, SEARCH has received more than 65 inquiries regarding court systems technical assistance and distributed hundreds of copies of the bulletin Court Automation and Integration to courts nationwide. The Eighth Judicial District in Gainesville, Florida, for example, requested help to integrate six county judicial information systems and to ensure that local facilities could support the project's technological requirements. BJA has also helped integrate court information systems in Harris County, Texas, connecting the court and judges to local law enforcement agencies and prosecutors. Courts there now have the ability to provide all docket information on a given case to a judge within an hour. BJA initiated and supported other programs in 1998 involving new technologies. In partnership with NIJ, BJA funded a geomapping and crime-fighting program in the Atlanta area, as well as a project to achieve systemswide integration and design for law enforcement communications and information analysis. Through the Institute of Investigative Technology (IIT), BJA trains law enforcement administrators, investigators, and officers in the use of specialized equipment, particularly for surveillance operations, and provides technical support through a national hotline. In FY 1998, this equipment training program was provided in two phases. First, administrators of local law enforcement agencies were introduced to the broader issues of surveillance technology, including applicable laws, public reactions, and privacy concerns. Second, investigators and other potential users were invited to try out a wide range of surveillance equipment. Because half of Byrne formula funding is used to purchase law enforcement equipment, this training program is an important, hands-on opportunity for law enforcement personnel to examine equipment before making unnecessary or ill-advised purchases. Since early 1998, more than 525 criminal justice administrators and 835 investigators have received this training, and demand continues to exceed the program's capacity. BJA also offered broad technology assistance in 1998 through the Center for Society, Law and Justice at the University of New Orleans. Criminal justice administrators and operations staff were given a chance to rehearse the planning, acquisition, and implementation of technological systems that would meet their jurisdiction's information needs. In the first phase, administrative decisionmakers (wardens, prosecutors, and police chiefs) were trained to develop strategic plans for technology systems, overcome typical roadblocks to implementation, secure executive buy-in from local officials, and use partnerships to enhance planning. In the second phase, a networked computer system demonstration for agency information systems personnel showed a variety of real-life scenarios such as tracking offender supervision or coordinating hostage negotiation. The project has reached more than 200 people in nearly 30 jurisdictions. BJA assists the National White Collar Crime Center (NWCCC) in providing a national support system for the prevention, investigation, and prosecution of multijurisdictional economic crimes. These white collar crimes include investment fraud, telemarketing fraud, boiler room operations, securities fraud, commodities fraud, and advanced-fee loan schemes. NWCCC's mission includes providing investigative support services to assist in the fight against economic crime, operating a national training and research institute focusing on economic crime issues, and developing the center as a national resource in combating economic crime. In FY 1998, the center continued to develop and maintain a state and local law enforcement response capability for computer and other high-tech crimes. NWCCC also cohosted with BJA a major conference on economic crime, Exploring Solutions for the 21st Century. In addition, NWCCC continued to support the work of the Infotech Working Group, a planning group chaired by the DOJ Criminal Division, in the development and implementation of training on the use of computers in criminal activity. In January 1998, the Alaska Department of Corrections invited BJA to help develop information systems to support the state's youth corrections operations. The department had a history of trouble with information systems support and wanted to undertake a careful planning effort before revising the system. BJA sponsored an intensive 2-day training for representatives from probation and parole, youth services, schools, technical information organizations, and similar agencies. The training helped the project's core oversight team clarify the department's needs, resources, and expectations for the new system. BJA also partnered with the Criminal Justice Institute at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1998 to implement a Strategic Information Technology Center. The program provides Internet access to remote law enforcement agencies and is planning a full range of technological support for rural jurisdictions, including guidance on information technology issues and a full-spectrum help desk. Evaluation: A Roadmap to What Works The progress state and local criminal justice programs can achieve in reducing crime and violence is limited if we cannot measure and document why they work. Knowing why effective programs work is in fact at the heart of BJA's mission to build safer, healthier communities. BJA supports numerous state, local, and tribal programs that are working to measure the effectiveness of their programs. Police departments, court officials, corrections agencies, and other criminal justice professionals increasingly demand good information about the improvement of justice in communities. All Byrne formula grants include the means for collecting and measuring the indicators of what is successful and what is ineffective. One of BJA's long-term goals, to enhance evaluation capacities at state and local levels, was realized in FY 1998. Under the Byrne Evaluation Partnership Program, BJA selected 15 grantees to evaluate 85 individual Byrne-funded programs. The nomination of programs for evaluation was a joint effort among BJA, state and local criminal justice program managers, and NIJ. Those programs found to be effective were documented in BJA's Guidelines and Criteria for the Nomination of Effective Criminal Justice Programs. The results form the basis for BJA's new Effective Programs Monograph Series. The first publication in the series, Improving the Nation's Criminal Justice System: Results and Findings From State and Local Evaluations, was distributed to criminal justice practitioners in early 1998. BJA provides evaluation assistance to grantees from a grant's outset. New grantees are partnered with professional researchers to help them focus and refocus on important goals and performance standards. With this process in place, they can approach local authorities with real data and say, "This approach works; supporting this program is to your advantage." The BJA-NIJ National Evaluation Partnership funded 20 national evaluation projects in FY 1998, including four new initiatives that have potential national impact: o Boston Safe Neighborhood Initiative. o State and Local Drug Testing Initiatives. o Statewide Implementation of Multijurisdictional Task Forces. o National Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools--Second Phase. The results of the evaluations will be published and disseminated nationally. In FY 1998, BJA brought Byrne grant administrators from around the country to Washington, D.C., to a briefing on evaluation issues, methods, and advantages. In addition, BJA supported two major conferences on evaluating task forces: a best-practices conference in Denver, Colorado, and a conference in California on documenting the accomplishments of multijurisdictional task forces. BJA sponsored a conference on evaluation and strategic planning for the U.S. territories and Pacific Rim states in early FY 1998 as well. During the Office of Justice Programs 1998 Annual Conference on Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation, BJA sponsored 18 events and cosponsored several others. BJA-sponsored plenary sessions, panels, and workshops at the conference featured topics such as evaluating treatment programs, crime in Indian Country, safer streets for juveniles, evaluation frameworks and measures, Byrne Evaluation Partnerships, and partnerships among State Administrative Agencies (SAAs) and state Statistical Analysis Centers (SACs). BJA also fostered significant evaluation work on issues relating to domestic violence. This effort worked to broaden current measures of evaluation beyond recidivism rates or police calls answered and include measures of quality of life for communities and victims. ------------------------------- APPENDIXES BJA Legislative Purpose Area Descriptions The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 established 26 purpose areas that define the nature and scope of programs and projects that might be funded under the Byrne Formula Grant Program. These areas, in toto, provide substantial authorization for programs that address drug control, violent and serious crimes, all aspects of criminal justice processing (including incarceration and treatment of offenders), and general improvements in justice system operations. 1. Demand-reduction education programs in which law enforcement officers participate. 2. Multijurisdictional task force programs that integrate federal, state, and local drug law enforcement agencies and prosecutors for the purpose of enhancing interagency coordination and intelligence and facilitating multijurisdictional investigations. 3. Programs that target the domestic sources of controlled and illegal substances, such as precursor chemicals, diverted pharmaceuticals, clandestine laboratories, and cannabis cultivations. 4. Community and neighborhood programs that assist citizens in preventing and controlling crime, including special programs that address the problem of crimes against the elderly and special programs for rural jurisdictions. 5. Programs that disrupt illicit commerce in stolen goods and property. 6. Programs to improve the investigation and prosecution of white collar crime, organized crime, public corruption crime, and fraud against the Federal Government, with priority to cases involving drug-related official corruption. 7. a. Programs to improve the operational effectiveness of law enforcement through the use of crime analysis techniques, street sales enforcement, schoolyard violator programs, and gang-related and low-income housing drug-control programs. b. Programs to develop and implement antiterrorism plans for deep-draft ports, international airports, and other important facilities. 8. Career criminal prosecution programs, including the development of model drug-control legislation. 9. Financial investigative programs that target the identification of money laundering operations and assets obtained through illegal drug trafficking, including the development of model legislation, financial investigative training, and financial information-sharing systems. 10. Programs to improve the operational effectiveness of courts by expanding prosecutorial, defender, and judicial resources and implementing court delay-reduction programs. 11. Programs 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. 12. Prison industry projects to place inmates in a realistic working and training environment that will enable them to acquire marketable skills and make financial payments for restitution to their victims, support their families, and support themselves in the institution. 13. Programs that identify and meet the treatment needs of adult and juvenile drug- and alcohol-dependent offenders. 14. Programs that provide assistance to jurors and witnesses and assistance (other than compensation) to victims of crime. 15. a. 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 forensics laboratories. b. Criminal justice information systems to assist law enforcement, prosecutorial, court, and corrections organizations (including automated fingerprint identification systems). 16. Innovative programs that demonstrate new and different approaches to enforcement, prosecution, and adjudication of drug offenses and other serious crimes. 17. Programs that address the problems of drug trafficking and illegal manufacture of controlled substances in public housing. 18. Programs that improve the criminal and juvenile justice system response to domestic and family violence, including spousal abuse, child abuse, and elder abuse. 19. Drug-control evaluation programs that state and local units of government may use to evaluate programs and projects directed at state drug-control activities. 20. Programs that provide alternatives to detention, jail, and prison for persons who pose no danger to the community. 21. Programs to strengthen urban enforcement and prosecution efforts targeting street drug sales. 22. Programs for the prosecution of driving-while-intoxicated charges and the enforcement of other laws relating to alcohol use and the operation of motor vehicles. 23. Programs that address the need for effective bindover systems for the prosecution of violent 16- and 17-year-old juveniles in courts with jurisdiction over adults. (Certain violent crimes, including murder and felonies committed with firearms, are specified.) 24. Law enforcement and prevention programs for gangs or youth who are involved in or at risk for involvement in gangs. 25. Programs to develop or improve the capabilities of forensic laboratories to analyze DNA for identification purposes. (Funding in this area requires adherence to, or the promise to adhere to, regulations developed and disseminated by the Attorney General with the assistance of the FBI and the National Institute of Justice.) 26. Programs to develop and implement antiterrorism training and procure equipment for local law enforcement authorities. Note: Congress has authorized the use of Byrne funds to support programs that assist in the litigation of death penalty federal habeas corpus petitions. This authorization applies only to FY 1998 and 1999 awards and may or may not be available in future funding cycles. ------------------------------- Please see PDF file for Tables 1 through 6 ------------------------------- BJA PUBLICATIONS PRINTED FISCAL YEAR 1998: OCTOBER 1, 1997, TO SEPTEMBER 30, 1998 Document--Date of Publication--Publication Number 1996 National Survey of State Sentencing Structures (Monograph)--9/98-- NCJ 169270 Addressing Community Gang Problems: A Practical Guide (Monograph)- -5/98--NCJ 164273 A Policymaker's Guide to Hate Crimes (Revised Monograph)--12/97-- NCJ 162304 BJA Annual Report Fiscal Year 1997 (Monograph)--9/98--NCJ 171697 BJA Annual Report Fiscal Year 1996 (Monograph)--10/97--NCJ 168621 Center for Task Force Training (CenTF) Program (Fact Sheet)--9/98--FS 000232 Closed-Circuit Televising of Children Who Are Victims of Abuse Grant Program Fiscal Year 1998 (Solicitation)--6/98--SL 000287 Critical Elements in the Planning, Development, and Implementation of Successful Correctional Options (Monograph)--2/98--NCJ 168966 Denial of Federal Benefits Program and Clearinghouse (Fact Sheet)-- 11/97--FS 000102 Developing a Strategy for Multiagency Response to Clandestine Drug Laboratories (Monograph)--7/98--NCJ 142643 Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Program (Fact Sheet)--3/98--FS 000184 FY 1998 Byrne Evaluation Partnership Program (Fact Sheet)--3/98--FS 000200 FY 1998 Local Law Enforcement Block Grants Program (Fact Sheet)-- 5/98--FS 000216 FY 1998 Local Law Enforcement Block Grants Program: Public Safety Officers' Health Benefits Provision (Fact Sheet)--6/98--FS 000188 FY 1998 Motor Vehicle Theft Prevention Program--1/98--SL 000339 FY 1998 Open Solicitation Announcement: Call for Concept Papers (Fact Sheet)--5/98--FS 000220 FY 1998 Open Solicitation Announcement (Solicitation)--4/98--SL 000281 FY 1998 Program Plan--3/98--SL 000272 FY 1998 State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (Fact Sheet)--4/98--FS 000152 FY 1998 State Criminal Alien Assistance Program Postcard With Reply (Solicitation)--5/98 --Not assigned FY 1998 State Identification Systems Grant Program (Fact Sheet)--5/98-- FS 000175 FY 1997 Discretionary Grant Program Awards Report (Monograph)-- 4/98--NCJ 169272 Improving the Nation's Criminal Justice System: Findings and Results from State and Local Program Evaluations (Monograph)--12/97--NCJ 166822 La Bodega de la Familia: Reaching Out to the Forgotten Victims of Substance Abuse (Bulletin)--4/98--NCJ 170595 Local Law Enforcement Block Grants Local Application Kit (Solicitation)--5/98 --SL 000293 Local Law Enforcement Block Grants Postcard (Solicitation)--10/97--Not assigned Local Law Enforcement Block Grants Program-Program Progress Reports: State Administrative Agencies (Solicitation)--12/97--LT 000282 Local Law Enforcement Block Grants Program 1998 State Application Kit (Solicitation)--5/98--SL 000290 Local Law Enforcement Equipment Procurement Program (Fact Sheet)-- 6/98--FS 000221 Open Solicitation 1997: The Results (Monograph)--12/97--NCJ 168096 Programs in Correctional Settings: Innovative State and Local Programs (Monograph)--6/98--NCJ 170088 Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program (Fact Sheet)--11/97--FS 000066 Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS) Funding and Administration Guidelines (Solicitation)--1/98--SL 000239 Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS) Funding Guidelines (Fact Sheet)--7/98--FS 000037 Responding to the Community: Principles for Planning and Creating a Community Court (Bulletin)--11/97--NCJ 166821 Strategies for Reducing Homicide: The Comprehensive Homicide Initiative in Richmond, California (Monograph)--12/97--NCJ 168100 The BJA Firearms to Trafficking Program: Demonstrating Effective Strategies To Control Violent Crime (Bulletin)--11/97 --NCJ 166818 The Watch Your Car Program (Fact Sheet)--2/98--FS 000151 -------------------------------