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Archive for the ‘Grants’ Category

New Options for Mentally Ill Criminals

November 23rd, 2009
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A $250,000 federal grant will help pay for a mental health court that looks at treatment programs before jail time. Story in the Patriot News.

Mentally ill criminal offenders in Dauphin County are closer to having a new avenue for help.

The county has been awarded a $250,000 federal grant to develop a mental health court for mentally ill prisoners.

The court would serve as an alternative judiciary process similar to drug and juvenile courts, county Commissioner Jeff Haste said.

A team including a public defender, the district attorney and pre-trial service representatives would collaborate to assign a treatment program before resorting to jail time, Haste said.

Defendants who are deemed successfully treated could have their criminal charges dismissed or deferred. Those who fail would re-enter the standard judiciary system.

The program would make the county prison system more economical, Haste said.

“Any amount of time we can reduce, whether it be no time in jail or reduced time in jail, helps … the taxpayers,” he said.

About 25 percent of the county’s prison population has been treated for mental illness and more than eight in 10 of those offenders have been imprisoned more than four times.

Mentally ill offenders often spend more days in jail than other offenders — even if they’ve committed the same crime, Haste said. Inmates with mental health problems might be unable to advocate for themselves or serve full sentences because of poor behavior, he said.

Similar mental health courts exist in Northumberland and York counties, Dauphin County spokeswoman Diane McNaughton said.

The grant also would pay for an expansion of jail diversion and re-entry programs, which reduce the number of days an offender with a mental illness and charged with a nonviolent misdemeanor has to spend in prison.

The county agreed in February to match up to $80,000 for the project. Haste couldn’t say when the court will be operational, but many of the pre-trial alternatives the court would enact are already being used for mental health offenders, he said.

The key to the process is not a special courtroom or a mental health judge, but a team of people working on the case, Haste said.

“There are a number of people who come together to develop a plan and take responsibility for an individual,” he said. “The judge then becomes the one who blesses the plan.”

janchavarie Grants, Mental Health Issues, PA Dauphin County

Law Enforcement Grants Continue To Shrink

March 29th, 2008
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Byrne Grants

The future of the Missouri River Drug Task Force, an anti-narcotics unit that includes 10 police detectives from seven counties in southwestern Montana, may depend on whether its officers can confiscate enough drug money to pay their own salaries. That’s because the task force, like hundreds of other specialized state and local law-enforcement teams across the country, relies heavily on a federal funding stream that Congress slashed by 67 percent late last year Similar scenarios are playing out across the nation, as cash-strapped law-enforcement teams from California to Pennsylvania come to terms with potentially crippling cuts in funding under a key federal grant program. State and local governments, struggling as the U.S. economy falters and tax revenues flatten, are unable to help.

Stateline covers this story in detail.

jakking Economic Issues, Federal Payments, Grants

Grant Cuts Could Bite Deep

February 5th, 2008
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The US Congress has agreed an Omnibus Appropriations Bill that sharply reduces (from $520m to $170m) money available for Byrne JAG Grants. These grants are a primary financial contributor to many local and regional law enforcement and corrections’ operations, especially for drug task forces and the like. The case of Helena MT will be typical.

Last year, Montana received about $1.2 million from the program, of which 90 to 95 percent went to the seven drug task forces in the state … The Missouri River Drug Task Force serves Helena, Lewis and Clark County and other surrounding communities. The task force, mainly funded by federal grant money, faces a cut of 67 percent for the next year, as do the rest of the nation’s multijurisdictional drug task forces. Task force detectives were instrumental in solving the last five homicides in Helena, all of which were drug-related. They used networks of informants to gather incriminating information on the murders. Investigators say they also spend many hours a week on assaults, burglaries and other drug-related crimes.

The full article from the Helena Independent Record has a lot more information.

jakking Grants, MT Helena, MT Lewis and Clark County, Montana

JAG Grants Cut

January 24th, 2008
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The Omnibus Appropriations Bill recently passed by Congress has reduced the amount of money funding JAG Grants from $520m last year to just $170m in 2008. Justice Assistance Grants (JAG) are the primary funder of state and local law enforcement initiatives.

Source:  IJIS email

jakking Grants

Dodge City Adopts Best Practices

January 16th, 2008
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In 2006, more than 44% of community corrections clients in Dodge City violated the terms of their supervision order. This annoyed Director Pat Klecker:

“I was frustrated,” said Klecker. “I knew that my (Intensive Supervision Officers) were doing a very good job, but we were not being effective. And I [was] troubled with it.”

Through NCIC he found ” The Eight Principles of Effective Intervention” and he knew it would help.

The Eight Principles of Effective Intervention say in order to successfully release an offender from probation, the corrections facility needs to help change the way the offender thinks and reacts to particular situations. The principles are as follows: Assess actuarial risk and needs, enhance intrinsic motivation, target intervention, skill train with directed practice, increase positive reinforcement, engage ongoing support in natural communities, measure relevant processes and practices, and provide measurement feedback. ISOs will utilize pro-social or rehabilitation interventions to emphasize positive behaviors. Research by the Center for Effective Public Policy says “punishment and deterrence-driven approaches used in isolation have negligible impact or no impact.” But when using positive reinforcement, revocation rates decrease and re-arrest rates can be lowered by as much as 20 percent …

Between July 1, 2006, and today, SFTCC has already reduced by 59.1 percent the number of felony offenders who are sent to prison for violating the conditions of their probation.

This is, of course, re-entry at the basic level. More details can be found in the Dodge City Daily Globe.

jakking Community Corrections, Grants, KS Santa Fe Trail Community Corrections, Kansas, Re-Entry

Daily Sweep 080116

January 16th, 2008
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A history of growth in the West Virginia corrections system. There are plans afoot to share biometric data around the world. Washington County MN receives grant to continue juvenile program. Brown County claims Wisconsin shortchanged the county by more than $100,000 on inmate fees.   Cumberland County PA Prison Board approves $10.7m expansion.

jakking Biometrics, Data Sharing, Grants, Juvenile Justice, MN Washington County, PA Cumberland County, WI Brown County, West Virginia, Wisconsin