Justice Department Announces $17 Million In Awards To Support Sex Offender Registration, Assessment, Intervention

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs (OJP) today announced more than $17 million in Fiscal Year 2015 grant assistance for states, territories and tribal governments to use in implementing and enhancing sex offender programming throughout the United States.

"The Department of Justice is helping state, territorial, and tribal officials meet the difficult challenges of managing sex offenders in their jurisdictions," said Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking (SMART Office) Director Luis C.deBaca. "Today's awards will bolster their efforts, strengthen the nation's public safety infrastructure, and bring peace of mind to America's communities."

More than $11.4 million will be used to develop or enhance sex offender registration programs; improve law enforcement and other justice agency information sharing as it relates to sex offender registration and notification; and implement other efforts that further the objectives of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), Title I of the Adam Walsh Act.  The Adam Walsh Act, signed into law July 27, 2006, is designed to protect children and adults from sexual exploitation and violent crime, to prevent child abuse and child pornography, to promote Internet safety, and honor the memory of Adam Walsh and other crime victims.  SORNA was enacted to assist law enforcement and protect the public from convicted sex offenders by establishing a comprehensive national system for the registration and public notification of those offenders.

Grants administered by the SMART Office directly include support for SORNA implementation; the Campus-Focused Sexual Assault Perpetrator Prevention and Education Program; the Sex Offender Management Fellowship program; the Circles of Support and Accountability in Indian Country Project Sites and Training and Technical Assistance Programs; the SORNA Tribal Training and Technical Assistance Program; and the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website (NSOPW).  Additionally, SMART Office funding will support partnerships with other Justice Department components, such as the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; the Bureau of Justice Assistance; and the Justice Management Division's Office of Chief Information Officer.

Through the SMART Office's FY 15 Campus-Focused Sexual Assault Perpetration Prevention and Education Program solicitation, more than $1.750 million was awarded to consortia of universities through projects led by Portland State University and the Center for Effective Public Policy to reduce sexual violence on college and university campuses through the design and implementation of a comprehensive situational-based sexual assault prevention strategy, which may include educational, structural, environmental, and policy components. 

To engage tribal communities in the reintegration process and fill gaps in services for sex offenders, with a high risk of recidivism, released without a formal aftercare process, the SMART Office funded the project Promoting Evidence Integration in Sex Offender Management: Applying Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA) in Indian Country Project Sites, awarding $250,000 to support the development of COSA-type initiatives in the Pueblo of Santo Domingo.

The SMART Office also awarded $250,000 to Fox Valley Technical College to will provide training and technical assistance for a tribal jurisdiction to develop a holistic healing program of supporting victims, encouraging responsibility for offenders, and minimizing the risk of future abuse.

In addition to grant programs administered by the office directly, the SMART Office transferred $550,000 to OJP's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for the Youth with Sexual Behavior Problems (YSBP) Program. The funds will support the development of comprehensive, multi-disciplinary approaches to intervention and supervision services for these youth and treatment services for their child victims and their parents and caregivers.

SMART also transferred $279,432 to the Bureau of Justice Assistance to continue the work of the Sex Offender Management Assessment Planning Initiative (SOMAPI) and to inform State Administering Agencies about evidence-based practices and promising approaches to sex offender management, and transferred $1 million to the Department's Justice Management Division/Office of Chief Information Office to fund a Tribal Access Pilot Program to improve SORNA tribal jurisdictions' access to fully participate in national criminal justice information databases.

Finally, the SMART Office dedicated $887,296 to support maintenance, operations and enhancements technology tools for sex offender administration, such as the NSOPW (which allows the public to search for registered sex offenders on a national scale) the Tribe and Territory Sex Offender Registry System, the Sex Offender Registry Tool, and the SORNA Exchange Portal.  

www.ojp.gov

SOURCE Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs

Related Links

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