Corrections/Jails

Office of Victim Services and Justice Grants(OVSJG) is the State Administering Agency (SAA) for Byrne funds. OVSJG is represented at multijurisdictional workgroups and stakeholders have approached OVSJG for the following TTA request: (1) training for staff at two consolidated and newly developing DC agencies within the public safety and justice cluster - DC Office of Chief Medical Officer and DC Forensic Sciences. Both agencies are developing its infrastructure and are under new administration.

Since its launch in 2010, the RJIP has identified and helped to reform policies and practices that produce racial disparities in local criminal justice systems across the country.

Travel support for four individuals to travel to OJP to present.

Technical assistance with the implementation of The Drug Market Intervention evidence-based model. This engagement consisted of one day of training, and one day of individual follow-up meetings with stakeholder agencies. Training participants consisted of mainly Camden County Police Department officers (and other ranks), other Camden County personnel, as well as members from the Newark (NJ) VRN site, Wilmington (DE) VRN site, and West Memphis (AR) VRN site.

NCJA Travel

Need assistance in developing a manual for Kentucky Prosecutors to assist in making appropriate bail recommendations based risks to public safety as opposed to defendant's ability to post a monetary bond. Key elements include screening by an experienced prosecutor, a recommendation based upon risk factors, and an opportunity to make alternative to incarceration recommendations suchas treatment, drug or mental health courts, or deferred prosecution.

BJA has requested that individuals from the Denver County Sheriff's Office participate in a panel discussion at the American Correctional Association (ACA) conference in August 2015.

The city of Detroit faces significant public safety challenges that include high rates of violent crime. A number of initiatives, including a number of federally-supported initiatives, are in place. The Detroit VRN team’s impression is that the impact of these initiatives could be enhanced through greater coordination across efforts. Analytics, technology support, and training may assist efforts to coordinate across initiatives and create greater synergies within specific agencies and across the network of local, state and federal criminal justice agencies and stakeholders.

We are requesting assistance from NTTAC to have a population analysis conducted of our ten county jails focused specifically on those inmates who are incarcerated pending adjudication of their cases. This is the first of three planned steps to bring about statewide bail reform in New Hampshire. This jail population analysis will give us a better idea of who we have in our jails pretrial, what is keeping them there (i.e., money bond amounts), how long they stay, and whether they need to be there.

BJA will commission a White Paper on risk assessment use in state and local sentencing decision making. The final report will be a critical tool to expand BJA's knowledge of how risk information is used, and may impact future BJA funding priorities and strategies.