November | December 2019

OJJDP Awards More Than $320 Million in Grants in Fiscal Year 2019

Students working on computers.

In fiscal year 2019, OJJDP made approximately 320 awards totaling more than $320 million to protect public safety, ensure offenders are held accountable, and empower youth to live productive and law-abiding lives. In addition, OJJDP grants supported states’ efforts to fulfill the core requirements of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. Following are highlights of OJJDP’s awards and activities.

Youth Mentoring Programs and Services: $83.1 Million

Through its Mentoring Opportunities for Youth initiative, the Office awarded more than $81 million in grants to 29 organizations in 18 states and the District of Columbia. The funding included $10 million specifically targeted to address the opioid epidemic and nearly $3 million designated for mentoring programs for youth involved in the juvenile justice system. A $2 million supplemental award allowed the National Mentoring Resource Center to continue offering comprehensive mentoring resources, research, and training materials to a nationwide audience through its website.

Missing and Exploited Children: $45.7 million

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) facilitates a coordinated national response to missing and sexually exploited children, operates a missing children hotline, and serves as the national clearinghouse for information and resources related to these children. More than $33.5 million was awarded to NCMEC to fund its operations and provide support, technical assistance, and training to assist law enforcement in locating and recovering missing and exploited children. Another $6 million was awarded to fund NCMEC’s National Resource Center and Clearinghouse, part of an interagency agreement between OJJDP and the U.S. Secret Service.

Grant funds totaling $4.4 million were awarded under the National AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program to help the AMBER Alert network improve law enforcement’s response to abducted children and encourage public participation in their recovery. Finally, an award of $1.8 million was provided to deliver training and technical assistance for missing and exploited children’s programs.

Assistance to States: $43 Million

OJJDP awarded $43 million to help states, territories, and the District of Columbia improve their juvenile justice systems. Of that amount, more than $37 million was awarded through the Formula Grants program under Title II of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act. The funds help state and local governments prevent juvenile crime and delinquency and assist states in meeting the JJDP Act’s core requirements. Nearly $6 million was awarded to continue the work of OJJDP’s Center for Coordinated Assistance to States. The center provides states with resources and training to plan, operate, and assess delinquency prevention, intervention, and juvenile justice system improvement projects to ensure they comply with the core requirements.

Internet Crimes Against Children: $36.1 Million

Predators searching online for unsupervised contact with minors present a significant threat to the safety of young people and a formidable challenge for law enforcement officials who must adapt their investigative techniques to a constantly evolving array of technology. OJJDP’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force program comprises 61 task forces representing more than 4,500 federal, state, and local law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies throughout the country. In FY 2019, OJJDP provided more than $29.7 million to fund this national network of task forces. An additional $5.86 million will support training and technical assistance and officer wellness programs for the task forces. Under the ICAC—Forensic Hiring Capacity Program for Wounded Veterans, OJJDP awarded $600,000 to three jurisdictions.

Drug Courts and the Opioid Crisis: $26 Million

OJJDP awarded nearly $7 million under the Opioid Affected Youth Initiative to six states and one federally recognized tribe. This program funds sites to develop a data-driven coordinated response for identifying and addressing challenges resulting from opioid abuse’s impact on youth and community safety. Another $1 million was awarded for training and technical assistance to states, local governments, and tribal jurisdictions in developing data-driven responses to opioid abuse.

OJJDP awarded just over $7 million across 11 awards under its Family Drug Court program. Nine awards totaling $3 million were provided under OJJDP’s Juvenile Drug Treatment Court program. OJJDP awarded another $8 million to provide training and technical support for the two programs.

Victims of Child Abuse: $22.5 Million

Nearly $22.5 million was awarded under OJJDP’s Victims of Child Abuse grant programs. These funds were awarded to enable national, regional, and local organizations to continue supporting children’s advocacy centers, multidisciplinary teams, and child abuse professionals who respond to children’s maltreatment across the United States. Of this total, more than $10.8 million was awarded to the National Children’s Alliance to fund local child advocacy centers, state chapters, and multidisciplinary teams that provide coordinated investigations and comprehensive responses to child abuse, and $5 million was awarded to fund four regional children’s advocacy centers that are helping communities respond to child abuse by providing training and technical assistance. The remaining $6.6 million in awards supported a range of other initiatives, including training and technical assistance for prosecutors handling child abuse cases, children’s advocacy centers that provide services for child pornography victims, and services to address child abuse cases on U.S. military installations.

Reentry Services: $11.2 Million

OJJDP awarded more than $11.2 million to fund reentry services for detained juveniles and incarcerated parents with children under 18. Over $6.7 million was awarded to nine jurisdictions under OJJDP’s Second Chance Act Youth Offender Reentry program. This program awards grants to improve reentry outcomes for incarcerated youth, encouraging collaboration between state agencies, local government, and community- and faith-based organizations. More than $4.5 million was awarded to seven jurisdictions under OJJDP’s Second Chance Act Addressing the Needs of Incarcerated Parents With Minor Children program, which supports the successful and safe transition of young fathers and mothers from detention, out-of-home placement, or incarceration to their families and communities.

Victims of Child Trafficking: $10.8 Million

To increase the availability of direct services for child and youth victims of commercial sexual exploitation and domestic sex trafficking, OJJDP provided more than $4 million to 9 organizations to support mentoring services for victims. A total of $750,000 was awarded for training and technical assistance to project sites funded under this program.

OJJDP also awarded $3.5 million to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children under an interagency agreement with the Office of Justice Programs’ Office for Victims of Crime. This agreement funds a project to enhance the center’s response to reports of child sex trafficking and provide training and technical assistance to individuals and law enforcement agencies in the prevention, investigation, prosecution, and treatment of cases involving child sex trafficking victims. Another $2.5 million was awarded to three organizations to enhance the technological investigative capacity and associated training of law enforcement in addressing child pornography, exploitation, and sex trafficking.

Court Appointed Special Advocates: $10.7 Million

Nearly $10.7 million was awarded to the National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association for membership, accreditation, and subgrants. This program provides advocacy for abused and neglected children—including foster care youth—in dependency hearings and supports other child welfare system stakeholders at all levels of government.

Anti-Gang Initiatives and Victim Support: $7.4 Million

OJJDP awarded nearly $7.4 million under four separate gang prevention, intervention, and education programs. Awards totaling $3.2 million through the Supporting Victims of Gang Violence program are facilitating the provision of victim assistance services to ensure that youth who are victims of gang violence are not traumatized further and have adequate supports to feel safe in their communities. Through its Youth Gang Desistance/Diversion program, the Office provided $2 million to law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies to support diversion activities and targeted incentives such as tattoo removal and life skill training for gang members who want to desist from gang activity. OJJDP awarded $1.34 million to six sites under the Youth Gang Suppression Implementation program to help jurisdictions establish a coordinated, multidisciplinary approach to suppressing youth gangs.

The Office provided more than $830,000 in supplemental funding to continue the work of the
National Gang Center, which provides comprehensive information, training, and technical assistance on community-based anti-gang initiatives.

Youth Violence and Victimization in Schools: $7.1 Million

Nine awards totaling more than $7.1 million were made under OJJDP’s Comprehensive School-Based Approach to Youth Violence and Victimization program. These grants provide funding to help communities prevent and reduce the incidence of school and community violence by holding offenders accountable, addressing victimization and trauma, and improving school safety and climate.

Juvenile Justice Research and Data Collection: $6.9 Million

OJJDP transferred $5.3 million to the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) as part of an interagency agreement to fund a variety of juvenile justice and public safety-related research and evaluation projects. These funds will be awarded in FY 2020 by NIJ. OJJDP also transferred $1.2 million to the U.S. Census Bureau to continue data collection activities under the biannual Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement and the Juvenile Residential Facility Census. These data collections provide valuable information about juveniles in residential placement and the facilities that hold them. OJJDP provided another $400,000 to the Bureau of Justice Statistics to archive and disseminate the Office’s data at the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, the nation’s leading resource for secondary analysis of research data on crime and the juvenile and criminal justice system.

Tribal Youth Initiatives: $6.5 Million

Through the Tribal Youth Program, OJJDP awarded more than $3.1 million to nine geographically diverse grantees to support prevention, intervention, and treatment programs that benefit tribal youth. The Office awarded $1.75 million under the Tribal Juvenile Healing to Wellness Courts program to respond to alcohol and substance abuse among youth younger than age 21. The funding will help the five participating courts develop or enhance policies, procedures, assessment tools, and service models that address alcohol and substance use in tribal communities.

The Office also awarded nearly $1.4 million to the Tribal Law and Policy Institute to continue their efforts to prevent crime and delinquency and provide culturally appropriate training and technical assistance to indigenous youth. The grant includes support for courts, probation, prosecutors, and other stakeholders who respond to juvenile crime as well as a focus on prevention programs. OJJDP awarded $300,000 to the Rural Alaska Community Action Program to continue to provide comprehensive and culturally relevant training and technical assistance to help Alaska Native communities create, expand, and sustain programs and services for youth.

Youth With Sexual Behavioral Problems: $3.4 Million

More than $1.9 million was awarded to four organizations under OJJDP’s Supporting Effective Interventions for Adolescent Sex Offenders and Youth With Sexual Behavioral Problems program. Three project sites were awarded to develop a community-based, comprehensive approach to respond to youth with sexual behavior problems, their child victims and their families. The funding also provides for a training and technical assistance provider to support the project sites in developing intervention models. An additional $1.5 million was awarded to the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center to provide enhanced training and technical assistance to the Department of Defense Family Advocacy Program. This program trains and provides resources to those military professionals who respond to problematic sexual behavior in military children and youth residing both stateside and overseas.

Child Abuse Training for Judicial and Court Personnel: $2.7 Million

OJJDP’s Child Abuse Training for Judicial and Court Personnel Program provided nearly $2.7 million to the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges to improve juvenile justice and dependency systems’ response to child abuse and neglect, as well as child sexual exploitation and sex trafficking. This program provides judicial, legal, and social service professionals with training and technical assistance to improve their understanding of child abuse issues; their ability to prevent placement in foster care, when possible; and to reunify families after foster care placement. This funding also supports strategies to coordinate information and services across systems, as well as systematic efforts to reduce the length of time children spend in the system.

Juvenile Indigent Defense: $1.8 Million

OJJDP made three awards totaling nearly $1.8 million under its Enhancements for Juvenile Indigent Defense program. These awards help states and localities develop and implement specialized training for public and appointed defenders who provide services to juvenile defendants from arrest through postdisposition and reentry. The awards also help improve the data collection and reporting capacity of the juvenile court system while also analyzing the juvenile defense delivery system to identify critical program, practice, and policy needs. Finally, these awards help provide juvenile offenders with access to high-quality, specialized juvenile defense services.

Training for Juvenile Prosecutors: $1.5 Million

Another $1.5 million was awarded to three project sites and one training and technical assistance provider under OJJDP’s Addressing the Training Needs of Juvenile Prosecutors program. This funding allows states to develop or supplement existing training and professional development tailored to the unique needs and challenges related to juvenile prosecution.

Resource:

For more information about the Office’s awards, visit OJJDP’s Funding webpage.