JJDP Act Native American Pass-Through Calculation

As of January 29, 2014, there are 566 Federally-recognized Tribal entities, as identified by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). These Tribes, which are listed in the January 29, 2014 Federal Register, are recognized as eligible for funding and services from the BIA and other federal agencies. The list includes Tribes in the contiguous 48 states as well as native villages in Alaska.

Tribal pass-through amounts calculated in FY2013 were based on the August 2012 list of 566 Federally-recognized Tribes; calculations prior to 2013 were based on the October 2010 list of 565 federally-recognized Tribes, which can be found in the October 1, 2010 Federal Register with a supplement listed in the October 27, 2010 Federal Register.

Since the Title II legislation requires that Tribes must provide law enforcement functions to be eligible for funding, these Tribes were identified using five available sources.

First, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) data from the Census of Tribal Justice Agencies in American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal Jurisdictions were used, as reported in Census of Tribal Justice Agencies in Indian Country, 2002. In the Census, Tribes were surveyed to collect information on tribal law enforcement, courts and administration, corrections and intermediate sentences, criminal history records and justice statistics. According to the final report, 165 Tribes performed law enforcement functions, defined as agencies that employed at least one full-time sworn officer with general arrest powers.

Second, the BJS Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies (CSLLEA), collected in 2008, allowed us a slightly more recent list of Tribes with law enforcement functions. Where the CSLLEA disagreed with the findings in the BJS Census, Web searches were done to determine whether a Tribal police department existed.

Third, Tribal-owned law enforcement or detention/corrections agencies that are listed in the Bureau of Indian Affairs' 2010 Office of Tribal Justice Directory were also considered eligible for the purposes of this program.

The fourth source identified Native American villages in Alaska that have Village Public Safety Officers. This information was obtained from the Alaska Department of Public Safety's Village Public Safety Officer Program. The list of officers is updated monthly; for each year of calculations, the twelve most recent months of data are used to determine eligibility.

Finally, Tribes that received law enforcement or justice funding from the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) or the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) between 2008 and 2013 were considered to be eligible for funding. Since the purpose of these grant programs is to strengthen law enforcement and justice-related functions, this serves as an indicator that the Tribe is undertaking some type of law enforcement activity.

In order to determine the percentage of juveniles in the state being served by Tribal law enforcement agencies, the total state juvenile population is needed. Census Bureau population data, accessed via the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's Easy Access to Juvenile Populations site, were used to determine state juvenile populations. The Easy Access site provides national, state and county population data by age, sex, race and ethnicity. Data on number of juveniles ages 0 through 17 in each state are extracted from the Easy Access system.

Calculating the pass-through amounts requires determining the number of juveniles under 18 being served by Tribal law enforcement agencies. BIA's American Indian Population and Labor Force Report provides a count of juveniles under the age of 16 for each Tribe. The report is based on a survey of federally recognized Tribes and includes data on Tribal enrollment, service population, and labor force information. For Tribes that did not provide population information in the most recently available report, data from the most recent previous survey available were reported by BIA.

In order to calculate the allocation formula, two adjustments must be made to the reported Tribal youth populations. The first adjustment required for the allocation calculation involves age; specifically, the Title II program includes youth ages 0-17, while data from the Labor Force Report include counts for youth ages 0-15. To make this adjustment, we used Census data to calculate the proportion of each state's Native American youth population (0-17 years of age) that consisted of 16 and 17 year-olds. The resulting percentage was then added to the BIA reported Tribal youth population for 0- to 15-year-olds to estimate the Tribal youth population ages 0-17.

The second adjustment requires that estimates for the most recent year of Census data be derived from the previous years of BIA data in order to match the most recent Census Bureau data available for the statewide youth populations. Again, Census data were used to calculate the change in each state's Native American youth population from the available year to the current year, where necessary. The resulting change factor was then applied to the previous years of BIA figures reported by the Tribes in that state.

As specified in the Act, the Native American Youth Pass-Through amount for each state is calculated by dividing the estimate of the number of Tribal youth from eligible Tribes by the total youth population for the state. The resulting percentage is then applied to two-thirds of the total dollar allocation for the state (after the allocation for the State Advisory Group has been subtracted) to arrive at the minimum amount that must be passed through to eligible Tribes.

View a sample of how this calculation was carried out for the state of Oklahoma:

The formula for the pass-through funds was specified by Congress as part of the formula grant funding to states included in the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act of 2002 (Pub. L. No. 93-415, 42 U.S.C. § 5601 et seq.). It is the responsibility of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to implement the various elements of the Act, which includes overseeing the formula calculation.

OJJDP, in conjunction with the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and the Justice Research and Statistics Association (JRSA), attempted to identify the most recent and accurate data for use in the formula calculation. The sources and calculations explained in the Methodology section of the Web site were deemed to be the most accurate by the agencies involved. OJJDP has provided funding to us to continue to examine these data sources and look for ways to improve the accuracy of the formula calculations.

A Tribe was considered to have a law enforcement function if it met any of the following criteria:

• Responded "yes" to the following question on the Bureau of Justice Statistics' 2002 Census of Tribal Justice Agencies in American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal Jurisdictions: "Does your tribe have a law enforcement agency employing sworn tribal personnel with general arrest powers?";
• Has a Tribal law enforcement (or quasi-law enforcement) agency, detention or criminal justice center (to include active Alaska Village Public Safety Officer program);
• Received funding in fiscal years 2008, 2009, or 2010 from any of the following grant programs: BJA Tribal Courts Assistance Program, BJA Correctional Facilities on Tribal Lands Program, COPS Tribal Resource Grant Program, or COPS Hiring Program.

The agencies involved have determined that the most accurate data on Tribal youth populations come from the survey of Tribes conducted by BIA for their American Indian Population and Labor Force Report. The survey was being conducted by BIA every other year; however, it was not administered in 2007. As of the Spring of 2010 a new survey has been fielded. us hopes to incorporate new Tribal youth population estimates from this new survey in the pass-through calculations for the FY 2012 Title II Formula Grants Program.

We will incorporate the most recent available data from each source at the time of each allocation formula calculation, usually around the beginning of each year. This will included the latest estimates of state juvenile populations from the Census Bureau, as well as any updates to the list of Federally-recognized Tribes or Tribes with law enforcement functions.

Law enforcement functions are defined broadly to encompass activities pertaining to the custody of children, including, but not limited to, police efforts to prevent, control, or reduce crime and delinquency or to apprehend criminal and delinquent offenders, and/or activities of corrections, probation, or parole authorities.

OJJDP has determined that if an Indian Tribe's land crosses state boundaries, the allocation for that Tribe is the responsibility of the state that is listed in the official mailing address of the Tribal government.

Tribes in PL 280 states that do not provide any of the law enforcement functions listed above are not eligible for funding as defined in the legislation. States may choose to make awards to those Tribes at their own discretion.

Please contact us with any questions you have about the information on the site. In this case, there are a couple of possible reasons why the Tribe isn't included. Some Tribes may be part of a larger or consolidated Tribe and are included in an award to another entity. For example, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz in Oregon is made up of approximately 27 bands, such as the Chinook, Tillamook, and Tolowa. It is also possible that the law enforcement agency is actually a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) agency rather than an agency funded by the Tribe, or that the law enforcement agency is new and is not yet reflected in our data sources. Please contact us so that we can verify the information and update our data, if necessary.

Please contact us with any questions regarding the calculation of the allocation formula. You may also contact us if you believe that a Tribe was incorrectly included or excluded from the list of Federally-recognized Tribes with law enforcement functions, or if you have a question regarding the state or Tribal youth population numbers.