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    Consideration for Implementing Enhanced Sentencing Authority

    Event Type: 
    Training Delivery - Webinar
    Wednesday Dec 18, 2013 - 08:00pm to 09:30pm EST
    Event Description: 

    This webinar will enable tribes (tribal leaders/tribal professionals/tribal attorneys) to evaluate the pros and cons of implementation of various aspects of the Tribal Law and Order Act (TLOA), including enhanced sentencing. The analysis will include a method to determine the pros and cons for each particular tribe; what general considerations the tribe may take into account including which crimes to pursue enhanced sentencing for; what, if any, additional costs the tribe may encounter and how to limit those additional costs; what portions of TLOA the tribe may wish to take advantage of if it chooses to implement enhanced sentencing; and/or other aspects of TLOA that may affect the tribe. After this webinar, tribes will be able to:

    • Determine what specific crimes the tribe would most likely seek to use enhanced sentencing for;
    • Discover how to limit the cost of implementing enhanced sentencing;
    • Discuss other considerations the tribe should look at when seeking to implement enhanced sentencing;
    • Discuss how to evaluate the pros and cons of implementation for their own tribe.

    Presenters:

    • Christine Folsom-Smith, Director, National Tribal Judicial Center
    • Theresa M. Pouley, Chief Judges, Tulalip Tribal Court
    • Norena Henry, Senior Policy Advisor, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice

     

    Event Cost Information
    Amount
    $0.00
    Organizer Information
    Provider: 
    National Judicial College
    Event POC: 
    Joseph Sawyer
    Event POC Email: 
    sawyer@judges.org
    December 03, 2013
    By: Suzette McLeod, BJA NTTAC Deputy Program Director The fundamental message behind the adage “two minds are better than one” is that the collective efforts of a group can achieve more than one person working independently. When people with similar interests or common goals get together to exchange information and ideas, the group is more knowledgeable and better equipped to achieve their goals. To support collective knowledge-sharing and collaboration among its training and technical assistance (TTA) providers, the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) National Training and Technical Assistance Center (NTTAC) is establishing Communities of Interest to provide a way to connect providers that share common focus areas. BJA NTTAC recognizes that BJA TTA providers who share information on their programs, resources, and best practices with one another are more successful in advancing national policy and evidence-based practices. Additionally, BJA TTA providers who coordinate and collaborate regularly are not only collectively more successful in advancing common missions, but more successful in their own right and are viewed as a more valuable resource to state, local, and tribal justice professionals and TTA recipients. The new BJA NTTAC Communities of Interest will bring together providers who are supporting similar policy areas or new programs so they can regularly share information about their projects, TTAs, and deliverables and adopt common protocols or tools, as appropriate. As Communities of Interest (COI) are launched in late-2013 and early-2014, BJA providers will be invited to join COIs related to their grant awards to leverage knowledge and resources in that specific topic area, such as Project Safe Neighborhoods and Information Sharing (also known as the Justice TTA Committee). Communities of Interest will consist of BJA TTA providers, BJA policy advisors, and NTTAC support staff and meetings will be held in-person, as well as through teleconferences and webinars. During these meetings, providers can share information about their TTA activities, new or helpful resources, and promising practices. COIs will provide a consistent forum where BJA grantees and providers can:
    • Elevate the quality of TTA services to jurisdictions that previously received BJA funding or TTA services by building off that work to provide better TTA service.
    • Improve the products and services offered to justice agencies by enabling partnership across providers with complementary skills, knowledge, and resources.
    • Enhance the advancement of national programs through broader involvement across TTA providers.
    • Grow the collective knowledge of providers supporting a specific BJA initiative or program.
    • Facilitate the use of common messages and approaches to advance the collective mission.
    • Add to a shared body of knowledge in the generation or refinement of evidence-based and promising practices.
    • Encourage the use and re-use of products and tools across TTA providers – replacing redundant efforts with cross-partner testing, refinement, and enhancement of shared products and tools.
    To support and provide a platform for this forum of collaboration, BJA NTTAC is developing the Online Collaboration Portal (OCP), which is a web-based system that will facilitate information sharing among BJA’s TTA providers. The OCP is scheduled to launch in February 2014 and will include features and functionality that allows providers to view up-to-date information on TTA activity trends, search directories to identify relevant criminal justice professionals, and utilize a geographic information system to visually see the distribution of TTA activity across the United States. BJA is excited about offering new opportunities for its TTA partners and providers - the COIs are just one way we are bringing groups together to increase the value and utilization of resources available across BJA’s TTA providers and through BJA NTTAC - ultimately enhancing the TTA services provided to state, local, and tribal justice professionals. If you are interested in submitting the work of your organization or jurisdiction for consideration to be featured in a future TTA Today blog post or to obtain information about a Community of Interest related to a particular topic area, please email us at BJANTTAC@ojp.usdoj.gov.
    November 26, 2013

    Don’t forget to register for the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA)/Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) webinar, Pre-Grant Application: Project TEAM Helping Tribes and State and Local Governments Create Joint Jurisdiction Collaborations. The webinar will take place on Monday, December 2 at 2p.m. EST. During the webinar, participants will learn about the current Wellness Court Collaboration in Cass County and Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and review requests for proposals and the application processes for eligible jurisdictions that want to create their own joint jurisdictional court collaboration. Speakers for the webinar are Judge John Smith, formerly of District Court of Cass County (Minnesota) and Judge Korey Wahwassuck, formerly of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Tribal Court. BJA, through Oregon Health and Science University, has provided funding for Project TEAM (Together Everyone Achieves More) that will allow for documentation of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe-Cass County Wellness Court, and training and technical assistance to one site that wishes to use Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe-Cass County as a model in creating its own joint jurisdictional court initiative. Pre-Grant Application Webinar: Project TEAM Helping Tribes and State and Local Governments Create Joint Jurisdiction Collaborations

    November 19, 2013

    Remember to register for the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA)/Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) webinar, Strengthening Court Systems: Understanding State and Federal Resources, which will take place on Thursday, November 21 at 3:00 p.m. EST. The webinar will highlight multiple grant opportunities available through State Administering Agencies (SAAs) and federally funded training and technical assistance opportunities offered to court systems. Attendees of the webinar will also hear from court administrators about the process of applying for grant funds and showcase strategies for integrating court functions into criminal justice resource planning. Webinar speakers include Brook Marshall, Executive Director of the Montana Board of Crime Control, Bradley Fowler, Planning and Organizational Development Officer for the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts, and Jonathan Faley, Associate Deputy Director of BJA, U.S. Department of Justice.

    Strengthening Court Systems: Understanding State and Federal Resources

    November 05, 2013

    Don’t forget to register for the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA) Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) webinar, From Grant Funds to State Appropriations. The webinar will take place on Wednesday, November 6 at 3:00p.m. EST. Speakers for the webinar will highlight two successful statewide initiatives, the Illinois Redeploy initiative and Oregon’s network of Drug and Problem Solving Courts. In addition to highlighting the success of these initiatives this webinar will look at how initiatives were transitioned, how state grant making agencies can support promising and proven initiatives, and some of the challenges these initiatives experienced when transitioning to state and local appropriations. Presenters for this webinar are Circuit Court Judge Dennis J. Graves (Salem, Oregon) and Mary Ann Dyar, program administrator for Illinois Adult Redeploy. Additionally, representatives from the Oregon and Illinois State Administrating Agencies (SAAs) will share some of the ways that state grant making agencies can support efforts of sub-grantees to find sustainable state or local funding. From Grant Funds to State Appropriations

    September 03, 2013

    Recently, Justice and Health Connect launched a new website to increase the ability of government agencies and community organizations to share information across behavioral health and justice systems. When law enforcement agencies, courts, probation and parole departments, jails, and prisons use health information, they can make intelligent decisions about which people are eligible to participate in drug courts, receive alternatives to incarceration, and enter into specialized treatment programs. The Justice and Health Connect website hosts research to help public officials and community organizations develop empirically-driven responses to the substance use and mental health needs of people involved in justice systems. Justice and Health Connect is a project of the Substance Use and Mental Health Program at the Vera Institute of Justice, which is supported by the Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance. For more information on Justice and Health Connect and to access the resources it provides, visit jhconnect.org.

    August 02, 2013

    Background

    For more than three decades, the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), through the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), has worked to support state, local, and tribal (SLT) law enforcement’s efforts to prevent, investigate, and prosecute economic and high-tech crime. NW3C strengthens this mission by staying current with technological innovations and working to keep law enforcement up-to-date. NW3C is a nonprofit, membership-affiliated organization comprised of SLT law enforcement and prosecutorial and regulatory agencies. Its work is funded primarily by grants through congressional appropriations from BJA and other federal agencies. NW3C supports law enforcement through several avenues; training, research, investigative support, and the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3®).

    • Training: Annually, NW3C delivers training to thousands of law enforcement professionals across the country in the areas of computer forensics, cybercrime investigations, financial crime investigations, and intelligence analysis. Within the past five years, nearly 36,000 law enforcement professionals have received training from NW3C.
    • Research: In the research arena, NW3C produces original research on all facets of white collar crime to support training and assist law enforcement. The research is geared to a variety of audiences, from citizens to law enforcement to policy makers. The research section produces original briefs, whitepapers, and research studies.
    • Investigative Support: NW3C’s Investigative Support section works behind the scenes to help member agencies fight white collar crime by providing public database searches, analytical assistance, and a forum for intelligence sharing. Case support to law enforcement over the last five years has helped lead to more than 4,000 months of criminal sentences and $70.7 million in restitution.
    • IC3: IC3 is an initiative between the Federal Bureau of Investigation, BJA, and NW3C. IC3.gov provides the public with a method of filing Internet crime complaints online.

    In addition to these services, NW3C publishes documents and information, such as The Briefing, a monthly online newsletter. These publications feature case highlights, training information, trends in high-tech and economic crime, and special features to support the detection, investigation, and prosecution of white collar crimes.

    Success Stories from NW3C Trainings

    The Intellectual Property (IP) Theft training is a collaborative effort between NW3C and the National Association of Attorneys General. Throughout the training, students learn the health and safety issues resulting from counterfeit products; economic ramifications of IP crime; investigative techniques; prosecutorial theories; and IP crime connection to organized crime, gangs, and terrorism. Students gain this expertise through the use of hands-on exercises and exposure to “real” examples of counterfeit products. The Baltimore County Police Department exemplifies a model outcome for the IP Theft training – having already begun to incorporate the knowledge gained from NW3C’s IP Theft training. Using this newfound knowledge, the Baltimore County Police Department conducted a large-scale investigation of vendors at a local flea market. As a result, the Economic Crimes Unit served 16 search warrants, which led to the confiscation of $1.5 million worth of counterfeit merchandise and pending charges against 19 individuals in the case. Another class offered by NW3C – the Basic Data Recovery and Acquisition (BDRA) course – is a three-day course that teaches not only the fundamentals of computer operations and hardware function, but also how to protect, preserve, and image digital evidence. The course includes presentations and hands-on instruction on topics including partitioning, data storage, hardware and software write blockers, the boot up and shutdown processes, live imaging, encryption detection, and duplicate imaging best practices. Ronald Bianchi, a detective with the Johnston Police Department assigned to the Rhode Island State Police Computer Crimes Unit, also exemplified a NW3C training success when he used the skills he acquired from the BDRA class in the investigation and arrest of a Providence, RI, woman accused of producing and disseminating child pornography. Although Bianchi had been working on the investigation prior to taking the class, he was able to leverage the skills acquired through BDRA to strengthen his work. Upon completion of the class, he spent 10 days using a commercial digital forensic science tool that helps examiners acquire data from devices, use disk level forensic analysis to discover evidence, and create reports on their findings. This new approach allowed Bianchi to obtain evidence that ultimately led to the arrest. “I don’t think I would have been able to work my case without the instruction in BDRA,” Bianchi says. For more information on NW3C’s services or to register for training, visit www.nw3c.org. To submit the work of your organization or jurisdiction for consideration to be featured in a future TTA Spotlight, please email BJANTTAC@ojp.usdoj.gov.

    July 29, 2013

    By: Kim Ball, BJA Senior Policy Advisor “One of the coolest ideas I have seen in my eight years in the Bureau of Justice Assistance,” is the first response that comes to mind when asked about my involvement with the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (APA) Innovations in Criminal Justice Summit. I have seen a lot of great progress and great work over my time, but the unique thing about this event is that I have witnessed its evolution – from an idea that was tossed out during a discussion with colleagues to execution of the second Summit in 2013. When APA Vice-President Steven Jansen conceived the idea for this event, we all knew that it was exactly what we needed to do to encourage those innovative, cost-effective interventions that had demonstrated promise in improving public safety and providing alternatives to incarceration. The Innovations in Criminal Justice Summit was developed as part of an effort to support practitioners in tackling a range of challenges – from limited attention to support program development and replication to a lack of resources to ensure successful program implementation. Often, the innovative practices that pave the way for more widespread and systemic reform are locally grown and lack both the attention and concrete evaluation data to demonstrate the positive outcomes achieved. In partnership with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the Center for Court Innovation (CCI), APA hosted the Summit as a means to not only bring attention to these promising practices, but also to help other communities replicate those practices within their own communities. The first Innovations in Criminal Justice Summit was held in 2011, bringing together a multi-disciplinary group of practitioners, including prosecutors, judges, public defenders, law enforcement, and service providers. During this event, ten innovative criminal justice practices were presented to the audience – each had been vetted through a rigorous selection process and selected by a blue ribbon committee that was comprised of members from a range of local and national agencies. The program presentations sought to not only raise awareness of these innovative programs and practices, but also to provide attendees with the resources and tools to implement these programs within their own communities. Building upon the foundation established by the first Summit, the Innovations in Criminal Justice Summit II took place in the spring of 2013. During the second Summit, APA partnered with BJA and CCI to present ten new innovative criminal justice practices to an audience of over 170 thought leaders and innovators. I again had the fortune of being involved in this event and was able to witness how the second Summit built upon the success of the first. As attendee D.C. Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert Morin stated, “the Summit offered a fascinating look at how jurisdictions across the country are using new and creative strategies to make their systems more effective and better meet the needs of their communities. We came away with a fresh perspective of what is possible, particularly valuable in this time of challenging resources." It is important to increase awareness of the innovative strategies presented during each Summit and to share resources and tools to help attendees replicate success in their own communities. For me, however, this is not the only value of the Summit. As Judge Morin said, it gives participants a newfound perspective of what can be done in their communities and fosters a spirit of innovation. After all, significant change can only be born out of a willingness to take risks, fail, learn from past mistakes, and try again. In my opening remarks for the first Summit, I said, “it takes a long time to implement innovation – and it’s not easy.” With each Summit, however, we are able to not only celebrate those innovations that have yielded success today, but also encourage criminal justice leaders to take risks that will uncover the innovative strategies to address the challenges of tomorrow.  more information on those ten innovative practices presented during the Innovations in Criminal Justice Summit II. Read the conference report from the Innovations in Criminal Justice Summit. The conference report from the Innovations in Criminal Justice Summit II will be available soon, so be sure to check back for the full report. To submit the work of your organization or jurisdiction for consideration to be featured in a future TTA Today blog post, please email BJANTTAC@ojp.usdoj.gov.

    June 27, 2013

    Background

    Drakontas LLC was founded in 2004 by a group of entrepreneurs and Drexel University researchers in pursuit of the following goal: to build a company that could deliver collaborative software and communications solutions to the government customer. Drakontas brings together a multidisciplinary team of technologists, psychologists, software engineers, and public policy experts to ensure a comprehensive approach to the development and evaluation of its technology solutions. The software tools that Drakontas has designed, and the training programs it manages, are designed to be responsive to customer needs and the evolution of government requirements. In order to address the current environment, which has been characterized by diminishing resources and limited funding, and with the rapid adoption of internet-connected consumer devices, the criminal justice community has witnessed a shift from classroom training to online, self-paced training options. Additionally, with the increase in the number of handheld devices used by criminals, victims, and witnesses, these devices have played an increasingly critical role in crime scene investigations. In recognition of these shifts, Drakontas partnered with Drexel University and BKForensics to develop a free, online training program to help law enforcement professionals address the challenges handheld computing technologies present to crime, investigations, and prosecutions. Sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, this training provides a critical resource for those law enforcement officials looking for a no-cost, flexible solution for gaining a better understanding of the identification and use of handheld devices during a crime scene investigation. Online Training Summary Handheld devices – from cell phones and smart phones to gaming devices, tablets, and personal navigation devices – are everywhere today. Given that in most cases, every criminal, victim, and witness is carrying at least one type of these devices at all times, they play an increasingly critical role in crime scene investigations. Though the information stored on or provided by these devices was overlooked in the past, it now serves as valuable evidence in solving a homicide, identifying a person of interest, or convicting a suspect. As a result, law enforcement professionals need to understand the policies and procedures for investigating crimes involving these handheld devices. To ensure that law enforcement professionals around the country have continuous access to this training, Drakontas recognized the need for a flexible, no-cost program. Launched in February 2013, Crimes Committed Using Handheld Devices addresses this need by providing a self-paced, online training program that can be accessed in the workplace or at home via a standard web browser. The course is broken down into lessons that are comprised of small learning modules that range from 5-15 minutes each. These lessons address a variety of topics, including the identification of handheld devices, the technologies underlying them, evidence collection procedures, investigatory procedures and processes, and basic forensics techniques. The course also includes several real-world case studies to which students can apply practical lessons taught throughout the course to reinforce various concepts and topics. This online training program can be used independently or to support training conducted in classrooms by an agency or an academy’s certified training instructors. To ensure that the training meets the needs of criminal justice professionals with a broad range of expertise with handheld devices, the training is broken into five levels, ranging from the essentials training to an introduction of basic forensics analysis techniques. Each level of training builds on the previous one in order to steadily grow the student’s understanding and proficiency. Since its release in February, the training course has resulted in the registration of over 1,200 law enforcement practitioners. Drakontas is already looking to build upon the progress established with this training – planning to release a second iteration of the course with updated content and new topics – in mid-August. For more information regarding this free online training program or to register, click on the link below. Crimes Committed Using Handheld Devices

    May 24, 2013

    To commemorate the memory of Etan Patz, a six-year old boy who disappeared from a New York City street corner on May 25, 1979, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed May 25, 1983 to be the first National Missing Children’s Day. Since its inauguration in 1983, National Missing Children’s Day has continued to be celebrated on May 25 to honor the memory of Etan Patz and all those children still missing. Each year, the Department of Justice (DOJ) commemorates this day with a ceremony honoring the heroic and exemplary efforts of the agencies, organizations, and individuals to protect children. On May 15, 2013, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs Mary Lou Leary spoke at the DOJ National Missing Children’s Day Ceremony to pay tribute to those individuals who have committed themselves to child protection efforts. To access additional resources for parents of missing and abducted children, go to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention website or visit the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s "Take 25" website.

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