Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2017, $273,443)
The Fiscal Year 2017 Smart on Juvenile Justice: Enhancing Youth Access to Justice Initiative (hereinafter Initiative) aims to further OJJDPs mission by funding efforts to (1) develop and implement standards of policy and practice to effectively manage well-resourced, statewide juvenile indigent defense systems; (2) develop state or regional resource centers that will help state, tribal, and local juvenile defense systems enhance the quality of legal representation, leverage resources, and collect and analyze data to measure the effectiveness of juvenile defense initiatives; and, (3) support community-based nonprofit organizations that provide direct civil legal services, mentoring, and reentry planning to youth in secure confinement or out-of-home placement who are transitioning, or have recently transitioned, back to their families and communities. This program is authorized under the FY17(OJJDP Juvenile Indigent Defense - TTA) Pub. L. No. 115-31, 131 Stat. 135, 206.
Pacific Juvenile Defender Center (PJDC) will build juvenile defender capacity, strengthen regional juvenile defender resource tools and networks, and advance policy for justice-involved youth in remote, rural, or underresourced regions in California. PJDC will use funding to cultivate and reinforce juvenile defense capacity in California by creating smaller regional centers in three remote regions across the state. Through these centers, PJDC will provide targeted juvenile defense training and strengthen the network of connections among local stakeholders in the juvenile justice system. PJDC will also update existing and develop new specialized materials to enhance and improve the level of juvenile defense practice (e.g., handbooks, manuals and toolkits), develop resources and training materials, provide training and resource materials to its smaller regional centers and to lawyers around the state, and advance policy by providing statewide and county-specific advocacy. CA/NCF