FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE OJP
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2000 202/307-0703
COMMUNITIES RECEIVE OVER $1 MILLION IN
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT FUNDS TO MANAGE SEX OFFENDERS
WASHINGTON, DC – For the second year, the
Justice Department is awarding funding to state and local jurisdictions to
develop, implement or expand comprehensive strategies to manage sex offenders
under community supervision. Twelve
communities in nine states are receiving a total of $1.3 million.
“This program helps states to improve the
monitoring of sex offenders who are released from prison into their
communities,” said Mary Lou Leary, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the
Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP), which administers the
grants. “We are encouraging those who
work with released sex offenders to collaborate and to supervise offenders such
that they can live in the community without posing a danger to others.”
To receive funds under the Comprehensive
Approaches to Sex Offender Management Grant program, communities must develop
multidisciplinary teams, which include probation and parole officers, other
criminal justice personnel, treatment providers and victim advocates.
Eight of the awards are planning grants to
assist jurisdictions in developing comprehensive, collaborative approaches to
managing sex offenders. The Alabama
Board of Pardons and Parole in Montgomery is receiving $49,997; St. Lawrence
County in Canton, New York is receiving
$49,908 and the State of Oklahoma is receiving $49,875. The Office of the Illinois Attorney General;
the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes in Poplar, Montana; the City of
Santa Fe; the Rennselaer County Executive in Troy, New York and the St. Regis
Mohawk Tribe in Hogansburg, New York are each receiving $50,000.
The other four grants will help communities
implement these strategies or enhance current programs. The State of Minnesota’s Department of
Corrections is receiving $189,130; the Fort Belknap Community Council in
Harlem, Montana is receiving $240,631; the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
in Austin, Texas is receiving $250,000 and the Department of Criminal Justice
Services in Richmond, Virginia is receiving $246,901.
Grantees will use these funds to establish
teams of representatives from law enforcement, prosecution, courts,
corrections, probation, social services and victim organizations to identify
strengths and weaknesses in sex offender management systems and assess the
staff and equipment necessary to identify, track and treat sex offenders. Planning funds will also be used to gauge
the need for training probation officers and other criminal justice personnel,
treatment providers and victim advocates about sex offender management.
“The goal of the program is to encourage
communities to examine their current sex offender management practices and
develop a more comprehensive, systemic approach to the issue,” added
Leary. “We are also collecting and
documenting information on community practices, so we can help other
communities determine what works.”
Congress appropriated $5 million for sex
offender management initiatives in Fiscal Year 2000, $2 million of which was
set aside for the grants. Training and
technical assistance will be provided to grantees and other interested
jurisdictions through a grant to the Center for Sex Offender Management in
Silver Spring, Maryland.
More information about the sex offender
management program is available on OJP’s Website at www.ojp.usdoj.gov,
or the Center for Sex Offender Management’s Website at www.csom.org, or
by calling the National Criminal Justice Reference Service toll-free on 1-800/851-3420.
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