National Juvenile Justice Prosecution Center

OJJDP's Juvenile Justice System Improvement Grants program was established to provide grants and cooperative agreements to organizations that provide programs and services critical to the mission of OJJDP, and organizations that OJJDP has selected for funds in prior years. This program will be authorized by an Act appropriating funds for the Department of Justice.

The National Juvenile Justice Prosecution Center (NJJPC) at Georgetown University is working to help ensure a fair and effective juvenile justice system by improving training and performance of juvenile prosecutors. Under a 2014 cooperative agreement with OJJDP, NJJPC has assembled a curriculum development team and is developing an instructional series of evidence-based training modules that will include the principles of diversion, cultural sensitivity, trauma-informed care, disproportionate minority contact, sexual exploitation and trafficking. The supplemental funding will be used to enhance and complete the development of the curriculum for juvenile prosecutors and finalize an accompanying national juvenile prosecution standards update. NJJPC will focus on moving its updated draft policy positions through the National District Attorneys Association’s (NDAA) formal standards-adoption process; expanding, completing, piloting and refining the juvenile prosecutor training curriculum; and delivering critical technical assistance to juvenile prosecutors across the United States. NJJPC proposes to convene fifteen juvenile prosecutors to participate in a pilot of the curriculum at the NDAA conference in Boson in July 2016, and utilize participants’ feedback to perfect and finalize the curriculum for broad distribution.
NCA/NCF