The Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP) announced awards of nearly $103 million to support youth and equity in juvenile justice systems. The awards are through the OJP Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and the National Institute of Justice. The funds were awarded to state, local, and tribal jurisdictions to prevent delinquency, improve outcomes for youth, and address racial and ethnic disparities in juvenile justice systems. The awards will support mentoring programs for youth, help develop research-based approaches to reduce recidivism, and ensure that system-involved youth have access to high-quality legal representation.
The grants include:
- Nearly $71 million to fund national and multi-state mentoring programs and services to youth. An additional $2.85 million will support OJJDP’s National Mentoring Resource Center.
- Over $9.7 million to support delinquency prevention programs that address the needs of youth who have had or who are likely to have juvenile justice system involvement.
- Almost $8 million to help states reform juvenile justice systems, implement recidivism reduction policies, practices and programming and to strategically reinvest cost savings into effective prevention and intervention programs.
- About $5.2 million to support juvenile justice research and data collection.
- More than $4.6 million to promote protective factors for girls who come in contact with juvenile justice systems.
- Over $2.2 million to improve juvenile indigent defense.
- Approximately $300,000 to support emergency planning activities for state, local, county, and tribal juvenile justice residential facilities.
These awards are in addition to more than $80 million in grants that target specific youth populations and support youth reentry initiatives, juvenile and family drug courts, family-based alternative sentencing programs and training for prosecutors in the juvenile justice system.
This was reported by Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention on January 3, 2022.
Contact information: Kara McCarthy, Public Affairs Specialist, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, Department of Justice, 810 7th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20531; 202-307-1241; Email: kara.mccarthy@usdoj.gov; Website: https://www.ojp.gov/
