OJJDP has awarded 360 fiscal year 2015 grants, which total more than $266 million. The specific awards highlighted below include support for programs and services that will build bridges between youth and law enforcement, reduce recidivism among youth returning to their communities after confinement, enhance the effectiveness of juvenile and family drug courts, and improve quality data collection and effective measurement practices.

In September, U.S. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch announced an OJJDP grant of $500,000 to fund a joint effort of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Coalition for Juvenile Justice to administer the Police and Youth Engagement: Supporting the Role of Law Enforcement in Juvenile Justice Reform program. The organizations will partner to convene a youth and law enforcement roundtable and develop an institute to provide TTA on innovative approaches relating to law enforcement, youth, and juvenile justice reform.

The Attorney General made the announcement during a Champions of Change event hosted by the White House on September 21.

Announced in October, the Office’s Second Chance Act awards totaling $12.3 million will—

• Shore up reentry services for Latino and Latina youth.
• Help reduce recidivism and improve outcomes for young fathers returning to their families and communities.
• Strengthen families of incarcerated parents.
• Implement reentry systems reform.
• Improve outcomes for youth under community supervision.

Funded programs include training and job placement for incarcerated or detained juveniles in technology-related jobs; training for mentors to assist pre-and postrelease; screening and assessments prerelease, and evidence-based treatment after incarceration to improve outcomes for incarcerated individuals with substance abuse and mental disorders; and assistance for jurisdictions providing reentry service to members of Native American tribes. The National Reentry Resource Center will continue to offer training and technical assistance (TTA) to the grantees.

OJJDP also announced $8.6 million in grants to juvenile and family drug courts to implement operational enhancements, increase effectiveness, promote the sharing of best practices, support systemic reform, and provide training and technical assistance. The Office awarded—

• $4 million to 10 jurisdictions in support of the Juvenile Drug Courts Addressing Systematic Barriers program. The program will help juvenile drug courts build their capacity to improve their operations and functions and to address systematic barriers.
• $2 million to the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges to bring together "Juvenile Drug Court Communities of Practice" to ensure positive outcomes and treatment for youth dealing with substance abuse.
• Nearly $1.6 million to support five family drug court statewide system reform efforts based on the OJJDP-sponsored "Guidance to States: Recommendations for Developing Family Drug Court Guidelines."
• $1 million to the Family Drug Court Training and Technical Assistance program. The program supports TTA that helps states, state and local courts, units of local government, and tribal governments develop, maintain, and enhance drug courts for substance-abusing adults who are involved with the family court due to child abuse and/or neglect issues.

In addition, OJJDP is supporting approximately $9.5 million in research activities for FY2015. One area being prioritized is improving systems data. Ensuring quality data collection and effective measurement practices is critical to informing juvenile justice reform efforts and ultimately improving outcomes for youth. Major data collection and measurement awards include—

• $650,000 to the National Juvenile Court Data Archive to collect and maintain the nation's primary source of detailed information on juvenile court case processing of delinquency and status offense cases.
• $750,000 to the Design Study of Dual System Youth to identify a method to generate a national estimate of the prevalence and incidence of dual system youth, and their key characteristics.
• $500,000 to the Juvenile Justice Model Data Project to advance efforts to improve the quality and consistency of justice information, and increase the appropriate use of data in policy and practice decisions by developing model juvenile justice data elements, measures, and analyses.
• $750,000 to the Initiative to Develop Juvenile Reentry Measurement Standards to help align measurement practices across jurisdictions, and improve the assessment of juvenile reentry services’ impact on public safety and positive youth outcomes by developing, testing, and disseminating a set of practice and outcome measures.

Resources:

For more information about the Office’s fiscal year 2015 awards, visit OJJDP’s Funding webpage.