Formula Grant Areas

The following are the formula grant purpose areas:

• Aftercare/Reentry. Community-based programs that prepare targeted youth to successfully return to their homes and communities after confinement in a training school, youth correctional facility, or other secure institution. These programs focus on preparing youth for release and providing a continuum of follow up post-placement services to promote successful reintegration into the community.


• After-School Programs. Programs that provide at-risk youth and youth in the juvenile justice systems with a range of age-appropriate activities, including tutoring, mentoring, and other educational and enrichment activities.


• Alternatives to Detention. These are community- and home-based alternatives to incarceration and institutionalization including for youth who need temporary placement such as crisis intervention, shelter and after-care and for youth who need residential placement such as a continuum of foster care or group home alternatives that provide access to a comprehensive array of services.


• Child Abuse and Neglect Programs. Programs that provide treatment to justice-involved youth who are victims of child abuse or neglect and to their families to reduce the likelihood that such youth offenders will commit subsequent violations of law.


• Community-Based Programs and Services. These programs and services are those that work pre- and post-confinement with:
  a. Parents and other family members to strengthen families to help keep youth in their homes;
  b. Youth during confinement and their families to ensure safe return of youth home and to strengthen the families; and
  c. Parents with limited English-speaking ability.


• Delinquency Prevention. Comprehensive juvenile justice and delinquency prevention programs that meet needs of youth through collaboration of the many local systems before which a youth may appear, including schools, courts, law enforcement agencies, child protection agencies, mental health agencies, welfare services, health care agencies and private nonprofit agencies offering youth services.


• Gangs. Programs, research, or other initiatives primarily to address issues related to youth gang activity. This program area includes prevention and intervention efforts directed at reducing gang-related activities.


• Graduated and Appropriate Sanctions. Programs to encourage courts to develop and implement a continuum of post-adjudication restraints that bridge the gap between traditional probation and confinement in a correctional setting. Services include expanded use of probation, mediation, restitution, community service, treatment, home detention, intensive supervision, electronic monitoring, translation services and similar programs, and secure, community-based treatment facilities linked to other support services such as health, mental health, education (remedial and special), job training and recreation. Programs to assist in design and use of evidenced-based risk assessment instruments to aid in application of appropriate sanctions.


• Hate Crimes. Programs to prevent and reduce hate crimes committed by youth.


• Job Training. Projects to enhance the employability of youth or prepare them for future employment. Such programs may include job readiness training, apprenticeships, and job referrals.


• Learning and Other Disabilities. Programs concerning youth delinquency and disability including on-the-job training to assist community services, law enforcement and juvenile justice personnel to recognize and provide for learning and other disabled juveniles.


• Mental Health Services. Programs providing mental health services for youth in custody in need of such services including, but are not limited to assessment, development of individualized treatment plans, and discharge plans.


• Mentoring, Counseling and Training Programs. Programs to develop and sustain a one- to-one supportive relationship between a responsible adult age 18 or older (mentor) and an at-risk youth, youth who have offended or youth with a parent or legal guardian who is or was incarcerated (mentee) that takes place on a regular basis. These programs may support academic tutoring, vocational and technical training, and drug and violence prevention counseling.


• Positive Youth Development. Programs that assist delinquent and at-risk youth in obtaining a sense of safety and structure, belonging and membership, self-worth and social contribution, independence and control over one's life, and closeness in interpersonal relationships.


• Probation. Programs to expand use of probation officers particularly to permit nonviolent youth offenders including status offenders to remain with their families as an alternative to incarceration or institutionalization and to ensure youth meet terms of their probation.


• Protecting Juvenile Rights. Projects to develop and implement activities focused on improving services for and protecting the rights of youth affected by the juvenile justice systems, including hiring court-appointed defenders, providing training, coordination, and innovative strategies for indigent defense services.


• School Programs. Education programs or supportive services in traditional public schools and detention/corrections education settings to encourage youth to remain in school or alternative learning programs, support transition to work and self-sufficiency, and enhance coordination between correctional programs and juveniles' local education programs to ensure the instruction they receive outside school is aligned with that provided in their schools and that any identified learning problems are communicated.


• Substance and Alcohol Abuse. Programs, research, or other initiatives to address the use and abuse of illegal and other prescription and nonprescription drugs and the use and abuse of alcohol. Programs include control, prevention, and treatment.


• Compliance Monitoring. Programs, research, staff support, or other activities primarily to enhance or maintain a state's ability to adequately monitor jails, detention facilities, and other facilities to assure compliance with the DSO, separation, and jail removal requirements at 42 U.S.C. § 5633(a)(11), (12), (13), and (22) of the JJDP Act.


• Deinstitutionalization of Status Offenders. Programs, research, or other initiatives to eliminate or prevent the placement of accused or adjudicated status offenders and nonoffenders in secure facilities, pursuant to the requirement at 42 U.S.C. § 5633(a)(11).


• Disproportionate Minority Contact. Programs, research, or other initiatives primarily to address the disproportionate number of youth members of minority groups who come into contact with the juvenile justice systems, pursuant to the requirement at 42 U.S.C. § 5633(a)(22).


• Diversion. Programs to divert youth from entering the juvenile justice systems including restorative justice programs such as youth or teen courts, victim-offender mediation and restorative circles.


• Gender-Specific Services. Services to address offenders' gender-specific needs, especially that of female offenders in the juvenile justice systems.


• Indian Tribe Programs. Programs to address youth justice and delinquency prevention issues for Indian Tribes and Alaska Natives.


• Indigent Defense. Hiring court-appointed defenders, providing training, coordination and innovative strategies for indigent defense.


• Jail Removal. Programs, research, or other initiatives to eliminate or prevent the detention or confinement of youth in adult jails and lockups, as defined in the JJDP Act at 42 U.S.C. § 5603 (a)(13).


• Juvenile Justice System Improvement. Programs, research, and other initiatives to examine issues or improve practices, policies, or procedures on a system-wide basis (e.g., examining problems affecting decisions from arrest to disposition and detention to corrections).


• Planning and Administration. Activities related to state plan development, other pre-award activities, and administration of the Formula Grants Program, including evaluation, monitoring, and staffing pursuant to the JJDP Act at 42 U.S.C. § 5632(c) and the OJJDP Formula Grant Regulation at 28 C.F.R. Part 31, Subpart B, § 31.102.


• Reducing Probation Officer Caseloads. Incentive grants to units of general local government that reduce the caseload of probation officers within such units. Grants may not exceed 5 percent of award excluding SAG allocation.


• Rural Area Juvenile Programs. Prevention, intervention, and treatment services in an area located outside a metropolitan statistical area as designated by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.


• Separation of Juveniles From Adult Inmates. Programs that ensure that youth will not be detained or confined in any institutions where they may come into contact with adult inmates, pursuant to the JJDP Act at 42 U.S.C. 5633(a)(12).


• State Advisory Group Allocation. Activities related to carrying out the state advisory group's responsibilities under the JJDP Act at 42 U.S.C. 5633(a)(3).