U.S. Congressman Garret Graves (South Louisiana) announced today 11 grants totaling $6,251,041 awarded this week from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). More information can be found below with awarded grants.
Grants:
Recipient: City Of Baton Rouge
Title of Project: FY 20 The Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program
Amount of Award: $721,293
Droject Description:
The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) FY20 Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP) supports cross-system collaboration to improve public safety responses and outcomes for individuals with mental illnesses (MI) or co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse (CMISA) who come into contact with the justice system. This program supports public safety efforts through partnerships with social services and other organizations that will enhance responses to people with MI and CMISA. All FY20 JMHCP grant recipients will follow a two-phase process consisting of planning and implementation activities during which grantees will develop a coordinated approach to implementing or enhancing services for justice-involved individuals with MI and CMISA. The planning phase can be for up to 12 months and the implementation phase will begin once the grantee has met the requirements of the planning phase and will continue for the remaining time of the grant. At least one criminal justice agency and one mental health agency will participate in the administration of the program. Under the FY20 JMHCP Purpose Area 1, the recipient will plan and implement a project that will place (embed) social workers and/or mental health professionals in law enforcement agencies to assist officers during encounters with people in mental health crisis. Funds can be used to pay for salaries as well as other expenses such as training and other coordination activities to ensure implementation of the collaborative program
Recipient: Louisiana Office Of Youth Development
Title of Project: FY 20 Safeguarding Correctional Facilities and Public Safety by Addressing Contraband Cellphones Program
Amount of Award: $125,136
Droject Description:
The purpose of the FY 2020 Safeguarding Correctional Facilities and Public Safety by Addressing Contraband Cellphones Program is to assist state and local governments, including federally recognized Indian tribes that serve a law enforcement function, protect against contraband cellphone use in correctional facilities. The site-based awards provide funding to operationalize effective and secure managed access systems in correctional settings to prevent, detect, seize, and stop the presence and use of contraband cellphones by detainees and inmates. The recipient will be expected to test, implement, and document changes to policy, practice, and tactics as they relate to preventing, detecting, seizing, and stopping the presence and use of contraband cellphones by detainees and inmates. The funding will support the development and implementation of managed-access systems, including strategies, training of correctional staff, developing operational orders, and establishing policies to seize and end the use of cellphone contraband. Applicants are encouraged to focus on: 1) Identifying micro-jamming systems that halt inmates' calls without disrupting services in the surrounding area, including those used by first responders; 2) Ensuring state, local, and tribal governments are in compliance with the Federal Communications Commission and other laws governing the interception of electronic communications, including the rules that criminalize actions aimed at disabling aircraft, and 3) Providing technological solutions to detect and disrupt drones. The objectives of this award are to test, implement, and measure managed access systems, as well as share strategies to reduce the presence and use of contraband cellphones in correctional facilities.
The recipient use award funds to bolster security rules and procedures involving cellphones and other contraband; purchase proven cellphone-detecting equipment; integrate training for new equipment use into security training; and test new equipment and new safety rules at four secure-care facilities in the north, central, and southern regions of the state.
Recipient: Louisiana Commission On Law Enforcement
Title of Project: FY 20 Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) for State Prisoners Program
Amount of Award: $655,435
Droject Description:
The Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) for State Prisoners Program assists states and local governments to develop and implement substance abuse treatment programs in state and local correctional and detention facilities and to create and maintain community-based aftercare services for offenders. The goal of the RSAT Program is to break the cycle of drugs and violence by reducing the demand for, use, and trafficking of illegal drugs. RSAT enhances the capability of states and units of local government to provide residential substance abuse treatment for incarcerated inmates; prepares offenders for their reintegration into the communities from which they came by incorporating reentry planning activities into treatment programs; and assists offenders and their communities through the reentry process through the delivery of community-based treatment and other broad-based aftercare services. The grantee will use the RSAT funds to implement up to three types of programs: residential, jail-based, and aftercare. At least 10 percent of the total state allocation for FY 2020 will be made available to local correctional and detention facilities—provided such facilities exist—for either residential substance abuse treatment programs or jail-based substance abuse treatment programs.
Recipient: Louisiana Department Of Justice
Title of Project: FY 20 The Intellectual Property Enforcement Program: Protecting Public Health, Safety, and the Economy from Counterfeit Goods and Product Piracy
Amount of Award: $216,622
Droject Description:
The Intellectual Property Enforcement Program (IPEP) is designed to improve the capacity of state, local, tribal, and territorial criminal justice systems to address intellectual property (IP) enforcement, including prosecution, prevention, training, and technical assistance. Awards will support law enforcement agencies which have an IP enforcement task force or plan to create one. These task forces will collaborate with the relevant state, local, territorial, tribal, campus, and federal agencies, including their local U.S. Attorney's Office (USAO), to fulfill program goals.
Recipient: Louisiana Office Of Juvenile Justice
Title of Project: OJJDP FY 2020 Juvenile Justice Emergency Planning Demonstration Program
Amount of Award: $150,000
Droject Description:
This program is authorized by 34 U.S.C. § 11131 and supports the development and improvement of state, tribal, county, and local juvenile residential facilities with particular focus on establishing an emergency plan that ensures the continuity of operations, reduction of risk to the physical plant, and the safety and well-being of youth and staff in juvenile justice residential facilities. Louisiana's Office of Juvenile Justice will build upon an existing all-hazards emergency management system to shore up preparedness at the following three secure-care facilities: Acadiana Center for Youth in the central part of the state, Swanson in the northern part of the state, and Bridge City near New Orleans. All of these facilities have unique and nuanced challenges that distinguish them from one another, thereby requiring a step beyond the one-size-fits-all mode of the current Emergency Operations Plan. A subgrantee will conduct an analysis of the current Emergency Operations Plan to prevent, mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from major emergencies.
Recipient: City Of Baton Rouge
Title of Project: OJJDP FY 2020 Family Drug Court Program
Amount of Award: $233,910
Droject Description:
The OJJDP Family Drug Court Program seeks to build the capacity of states, state and local courts, units of local government, and federally recognized tribal governments to sustain existing family drug courts or establish new family drug courts. Category 1: Enhancing Family Drug Courts will support courts that are fully operational (for at least 1 year) to enhance services of existing family drug courts. The East Baton Rouge Parish (EBRP) Juvenile Court, Family Preservation Court (FPC), will enhance and expand services to participants by providing two peer support specialists. The project will also provide a Strengthening Families Program that would provide a second layer of services for FPC participants by offering an evidence-based program for the entire family at the EBRP juvenile court facility. Further, the project will provide transportation aid for the participants who need it as well as incentives for participant program compliance.
Recipient: Louisiana State University
Title of Project: FY 20 Postconviction Testing of DNA Evidence
Amount of Award: $497,807
Droject Description:
Under this program, BJA provides funding to help defray the costs associated with postconviction DNA testing for violent felony offenses (as defined by state law) in which actual innocence might be demonstrated. Louisiana State University Law and Innocence Project New Orleans will partner to design and implement this proposal to conduct DNA testing of cases with strong innocence merit. Once cases have been selected, the Wrongful Conviction Clinic will begin tracking down potentially exculpatory physical evidence. Only those cases where the following could be established through thorough records review and some investigation will move onto the third and final stage:
(1) Evidence was collected in the case that, if tested, could establish innocence.
(2) The testable evidence either still exists or there is high likelihood that it still exists.
(3) The incarcerated person understands DNA testing and wants testing.
(4) The current evidence leaves reason to doubt the incarcerated person's guilt. In stage three, postconviction application for DNA testing is filed in the criminal district court where the petitioner was convicted. The district court must order testing and direct the evidence custodian to transfer the evidence to an accredited laboratory that is agreeable to the state and the petitioner. By the end of the grant period, it is anticipated that the Wrongful Conviction Clinic will have exonerated or be well on its way to exonerating 8-12 wrongly convicted innocent individuals.
Recipient: Louisiana State Police
Title of Project: FY 20 DNA Capacity Enhancement and Backlog Reduction (CEBR) Program
Amount of Award: $299,117
Droject Description:
The FY 2020 DNA Capacity Enhancement for Backlog Reduction (CEBR) Program provides funding to States and units of local government with existing crime laboratories to increase the capacity of publicly funded forensic DNA and DNA database laboratories to process more DNA samples, thereby helping to reduce the number of forensic DNA and DNA database samples awaiting analysis and/or prevent a backlog of forensic and database DNA samples. Funding under this program supports to following purposes: 1) To carry out, for inclusion in the Combined DNA Index System, DNA analyses of database samples collected under applicable legal authority; 2) To carry out, for inclusion in the Combined DNA Index System, DNA analyses of forensic case (e.g., "crime scene") samples; and 3) To increase the capacity of publicly-funded forensic DNA and DNA database laboratories.
Recipient: Louisiana Commission On Law Enforcement
Title of Project: FY 20 Paul Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Grants Program (FORMULA)
Amount of Award: $264,698
Droject Description:
The Paul Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Grants Program - Formula (the Coverdell program), awards grants to states and units of local government to improve forensic science and medical examiner/ coroner services. State Administering Agencies (SAAs) may apply for both formula and competitive funds. The Coverdell program provides funding to states to improve forensic science and medical examiner/coroner services, including services provided by laboratories operated by states and units of local government.
Recipient: Louisiana State Police
Title of Project: Anti-Heroin Task Force (AHTF) Program
Recipient: Louisiana State University and A&M College
Title of Project: Louisiana State University and A&M College School Safety Project
Amount of Award: $88,229
Droject Description:
The Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) awarded more than $536.7 million in Fiscal Year 2020 to increase law enforcement hiring and to improve school safety, combat opioids and methamphetamine, advance community policing efforts, provide training to the law enforcement field, and protect the health of our nation's officers and deputies. To read more, click here.
Graves also recently announced $971,212 awarded from DOJ to aid Ascension, East Baton Rouge, Lafourche and Livingston sheriff departments in their efforts to prevent and control crime.
