Northern Cheyenne Court Juvenile Diversion Project

Under the authority bestowed by 42 U.S.C. Section 3796ee-1, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) made under its Tribal Juvenile Accountability Discretionary Grants (Tribal JADG) Program to federally recognized tribal communities to develop and implement programs that hold AI/AN youth accountable for delinquent behavior and strengthen tribal juvenile justice systems. For the purposes of this program, 'juvenile' refers to youth ages 17 and younger. Federally recognized tribes may use program funds to address 1 or more of the 17 Tribal JADG Program's purpose areas.

The Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation is a federally recognized tribe located in rural southeastern Montana in the town of Lame Deer, MT. To date, the Northern Cheyenne tribal enrollment is 9,496. The Northern Cheyenne Tribe proposes to provide the impetus and organization to unify area law enforcement, substance abuse, criminal justice, and social service agencies into a coordinated collaboration with a thoughtfully developed strategy designed to control and prevent crime, truancy, school dropout, substance abuse and associated problems.
The goal of this program is to reduce juvenile offending through accountability-based programs focused on 25-40 juvenile offenders, ages 12-17, and the juvenile justice system. To this end, the Northern Cheyenne Court will work in these identified purpose areas: (1) developing, implementing, and administering graduated sanctions for juvenile offenders; (3) hiring juvenile court judges, probation officers, and court-appointed defenders and special advocates, and funding pretrial services (including mental health screening and assessment) for juvenile offenders, to promote the effective and expeditious administration of the juvenile justice system; (6) establishing and maintaining training programs for law enforcement and other court personnel with respect to preventing and controlling juvenile crime; (11) establishing and maintaining accountability-based programs designed to reduce recidivism among juveniles who are referred by law enforcement personnel or agencies; (14) establishing and maintaining restorative justice programs; and (15) establishing and maintaining programs to enable juvenile courts and juvenile probation officers to be more effective and efficient in holding juvenile offenders accountable and reducing recidivism. CA/NCF