Summary

The goal of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is to provide national leadership in addressing juvenile delinquency and in improving juvenile justice. OJJDP, whose budget totaled $162 million in fiscal year 1995, administers a range of grants to states, territories, and public and private groups. OJJDP has procedures to plan, solicit, and award grants, as well as to audit and monitor grant projects and communicate the results of the work to practitioners and policymakers. However, some monitoring procedures were not followed. A review of formula grant data between January 1993 and December 1995 showed that on-site visits for program monitoring were generally not done annually, as required. According to OJJDP, the visits did not occur because they are expensive and time consuming. Although almost all OJJDP grant files indicated plans for monitoring the work, the files contained little evidence to suggest that the monitoring actually occurred. OJJDP indicated that it planned to improve its monitoring records.