Section 2. Fiscal Year 2001 Programs
Although
rates of violent crime have fallen nationwide in recent years, the level
of violence is still too high in many communities. Violence and drug trafficking
involving youth and young adults in urban centers remains a critical problem,
destroying the neighborhood bonds that form strong communities. The nation
has also become aware of the destructive role violence and drugs play
in rural and suburban communities.
In FY 2001, BJA continued its commitment to protect every American’s ability to live, work, and go to school in a secure environment. BJA also continued its commitment to improving how the justice system operates at every level of government—federal, regional, state, local, and tribal—and how well these separate systems share information and work together to prevent and investigate crime, prosecute offenders, and aid their reentry into society.
BJA is an active partner in Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a major federal, state, and local initiative to combat gun-related crimes and violence in communities across America. At the local level, PSN builds on existing innovative programs that have proved effective in reducing gun violence. In communities without these efforts, U.S. Attorneys are using these models to establish new programs.
PSN is an unprecedented partnership among federal, state, and local prosecutors and law enforcement officials to reclaim communities and save lives. At the national level, partners are the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ); the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; the International Association of Chiefs of Police; the National District Attorneys Association; and the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC).
Under a BJA grant, NCPC developed the Implementation Guide for PSN Partners, a multimedia toolkit distributed to U.S. Attorneys and local prosecutors. The toolkit provides information on partnerships, strategic planning, training, community outreach and public awareness, and accountability.
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BJA also provides assistance for national gun violence prevention efforts through the American Prosecutors Research Institute (APRI). APRI led the development of training materials presented to U.S. Attorneys, local prosecutors, and police chiefs at the National Advocacy Center in Columbia, South Carolina, and will work with prosecutors nationwide in FY 2002 to create training curricula on the fundamentals of gun prosecution. Additionally, APRI identified and visited six promising practices sites—Baltimore, Maryland; Colorado Springs and Denver, Colorado; Houston, Texas; Richmond, Virginia; and Seattle, Washington—and published a bulletin on Richmond’s Project Exile. In FY 2002, BJA plans to publish a monograph highlighting promising gun violence reduction initiatives across the nation.
As
part of PSN, BJA administers the Community Gun Violence Prosecution (GVP)
Program. Congress appropriated $75 million for the GVP Program to fund
the hiring of prosecutors in local jurisdictions dedicated to the prosecution
of gun violence-related cases. GVP grants will improve the long-term ability
of prosecution agencies to more fully address the issue of firearm-related
violent crime within their jurisdictions and deter firearm-related violent
crime through the swift certainty of prosecution. In FY 2001, BJA awarded
more than $16 million of the funds to 95 jurisdictions to hire 146 prosecutors.
The balance of the funds will be awarded in FY 2002 to approximately 200
additional jurisdictions.
In addition to ensuring that our nation’s prosecutors have the resources to prosecute gun crimes, BJA supports initiatives that help local jurisdictions strategically plan their gun enforcement strategies. The Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorneys’ Services Council continued the Virginia Exile Public Awareness Demonstration Program to provide a national model for states seeking to implement a coordinated, statewide program to get guns off the streets. The grant also provides funds for training to ensure that Virginia prosecutors and police officers have the tools to arrest and prosecute offenders involved in incidents of gun violence.
A
grant to Hobson and Associates sponsored law enforcement training seminars
on gun recovery and enforcement for 10 cities throughout the United States,
and the Police Executive Research Forum continued the National Guns-First
Training Program, which improves police investigation of firearms offenses
by educating state and local police officers about federal and state firearms
statutes. The Firearms Interdiction and Investigation Technical Assistance
Project of the International Association of Chiefs of Police provided
assistance for law enforcement agencies to augment their expertise in
illegal firearms trafficking.
To ensure the safety of young children in gun-owning families, BJA funded Project Homesafe, an initiative of the National Shooting and Sports Foundation (NSSF). Through the award, NSSF distributed 3 million safe gun storage kits to gun owners. The kits contain a gun lock and information on safe firearm storage and youth violence prevention.
American law enforcement and investigation agencies that protect our nation from acts of terrorism face an unprecedented challenge. The scope of this challenge was made clear by the terrorist attacks of September 11.
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To help our nation’s law enforcement officers and investigators confront this threat, the State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training (SLATT) Program provides training in the detection, investigation, and prosecution of extremist criminal activity, including activity inspired by international events.
This focus distinguishes SLATT from first responder and related weapons of mass destruction/nuclear, biological, and chemical response training provided for emergency service personnel. In response to the attacks of September 11, SLATT expanded its training and research on foreign-inspired terrorism to include specific organizations believed to be involved in the attacks.
The delivery of SLATT to law enforcement agencies nationwide is a joint effort of the Institute for Intergovernmental Research and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). SLATT courses are designed for state and local law enforcement executives, command personnel, intelligence officers, investigators, training directors, and prosecutors.
BJA Funding In Focus
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A
day before the opening of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt
Lake City, Utah, a spokesman for the Secret Service predicted
that the Games would be the most enormous security undertaking
ever attempted in the United States. The State of Kentucky has taken an innovative approach to preparing law enforcement officers to respond to acts of terrorism. The state uses Byrne money to host statewide anti-terrorism training conducted by the Pennyrile, Kentucky, narcotics task force director, an expert in meth lab investigation and dismantling. The training is conducted in association with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA).
Economic and social changes, including increased mobility, better access to higher education, and explosive urban growth, have had a dramatic impact on American rural life. Although these changes have brought prosperity and opportunity for some communities, they have also disrupted informal, family-based social networks that played an important role in preserving community safety.
In FY 2001, BJA funded two organizations that study crime in rural America and help rural communities develop violence prevention strategies: the National Center on Rural Justice and Crime Prevention at Clemson University and the National Center for Rural Law Enforcement (NCRLE) at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
In
South Carolina, the National Center on Rural Justice and Crime Prevention
stimulates partnerships between local justice systems and residents, organizations,
and institutions in rural communities and small towns. The center focuses
on three activities: applying innovative community justice models at six
rural sites, gathering and disseminating information about the nature
and prevalence of rural crime and delinquency, and providing technical
assistance for rural communities nationwide on community building and
community justice strategies.
In Arkansas, the National Center for Rural Law Enforcement continued its work to enhance the leadership and management skills of chief executives of rural law enforcement agencies, tribal police, and railroad police. NCRLE also used BJA funds to develop the Strategic Information Technology Center, which will facilitate information sharing among rural and urban justice organizations.
In February 2001, BJA released Community Justice in Rural America: Four Examples and Four Futures, which reported the results of a project by the Center for Effective Public Policy to study rural communities in which community-driven solutions to crime problems have taken root. The communities studied—in Idaho, Oregon, Vermont, and Wisconsin—have different cultures and crime problems, but they shared a desire to overcome limited resources in their local criminal justice systems and find innovative solutions to seemingly intractable problems.
To address the difficult issue of violence motivated by hate, BJA has helped communities, police, prosecutors, and school administrators prevent hate crimes before they occur and to respond more effectively when they do.
In Los Angeles, the National Institutes Against Hate Crimes brings together teams of law enforcement professionals for intensive 4-day courses at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. By the end of the course, each team develops a comprehensive, coordinated plan for addressing hate crimes in its community.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s JOLT (Juvenile Offenders Learning Tolerance) Program combines a comprehensive training program for faculty and staff that serve kindergarten through grade 12 schools, a diversion program for juveniles who are involved in bias incidents, and aggressive prosecution of teenagers who commit serious hate crimes or fail to complete the diversion program. JOLT classes help juvenile offenders accept responsibility for their misconduct, recognize biases, and develop a plan to counteract negative stereotyping in their lives. JOLT is a partnership of the Los Angeles County District Attorney, the L.A. County Juvenile Court, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, the L.A. County Department of Probation, L.A. County school districts, the Anti-Defamation League, and community organizations.
In Massachusetts, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Governor’s Task Force on Hate Crimes continued its efforts to improve the reporting of hate crimes by the state’s youth. To heighten awareness of hate crimes in schools and communities, and to strengthen law enforcement’s response to hate crimes, the initiative developed student civil rights teams at seven schools across the state, training peer leaders to implement “Stop the Hate” awareness weeks. The initiative’s web site has received more than 4 million hits since its inception.
Methamphetamine Investigation and Cleanup
The proliferation of methamphetamine labs in the western United States over the last decade has coincided with a number of factors that have made it easier for criminals to cook meth without detection. Experts in Wyoming’s Division of Criminal Investigation have reported that methamphetamine production has moved from super labs—large-scale operations controlled by individuals who are heavily involved in manufacturing and selling drugs—to one-man operations set up to make quick money.
The most probable reason for this shift is the increase in readily available recipes for cooking meth—recipes a complete stranger to meth trafficking can pull off the Internet. Traffickers can purchase materials for these simple recipes at local hardware and drug stores. A second factor is the increased use of “cold” cooking techniques, which makes clandestine labs more difficult to detect. By not using extreme heat, meth producers avoid explosions, pungent odors, and large, immobile equipment.
BJA has administered a substantial portion of DOJ’s Methamphetamine/Drug Hot Spots Program in cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). This important initiative helps states and local law enforcement agencies and task forces investigate and dismantle clandestine methamphetamine laboratories. The initiative also reimburses DEA for properly removing and disposing of hazardous materials from the labs.
In FY 2001, BJA administered 16 grants through the Methamphetamine/Drug Hot Spots Program to high-impact locations in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury established a program in 1998 to detect, prevent, and suppress money laundering and related financial crimes. The National Money Laundering Strategy for 2000, jointly published by the Treasury and Justice Departments, outlines the goals of this initiative, one of which is to strengthen partnerships with state and local governments to fight money laundering throughout the United States.
The Department of the Treasury asked BJA to administer the Financial Crime-Free Communities Support (C–FIC) Anti-Money Laundering Grant Program, which encourages state and local law enforcement agencies and prosecutors’ offices to identify emerging or chronic money laundering issues within their jurisdictions and implement innovative strategies to address them.
With the addition of 8 grants awarded in FY 2001, C–FIC now funds 17 programs in Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, New York, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin. These programs have resulted in numerous arrests, and several grantees have requested new state legislation to address money laundering issues. Results of an evaluation of the programs will be available in FY 2002.
Using Byrne funding, New Jersey has established one of the most comprehensive and innovative money laundering enforcement programs in the country. In FY 2001, New Jersey used Byrne money to create a centralized database on money laundering trends and suspects in the state. The database is an information repository and clearinghouse, offering immediate access to the most current information available on financial institutions and individuals involved in suspicious transactions.
BJA Funding In Focus
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| BJA Annual Report: FY 2001 |
June 2002
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