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JUVENILE ACCOUNTABILITY BLOCK GRANT

What it is:  The Juvenile Accountability Block Grant (JABG) provides grants to states and localities to implement programs that strengthen the juvenile justice system. The Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-162) included the most recent reauthorization of this program for Fiscal Years 2006-2009. By implementing a system of graduated sanctions for juvenile offenders, JABG grants help promote accountability in the juvenile justice system and prevent crime. JABG supports state and local juvenile justice approaches ranging from secure juvenile corrections for some serious and violent offenders, to effective community-based residential treatment programs for offenders who do not need to be locked up, to substance abuse and mental health services for non-violent offenders remaining at home, to school safety programs.

How it works:  The U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention administers grants to states, which are required to distribute at least 75 percent of the funding to units of local government.

Why it’s important:  JABG supports intervention programs aimed at reducing recidivism and rehabilitating adjudicated youth. Many juvenile court judges are faced with very limited sentencing (or "disposition") options for a delinquency case (e.g., lock up or probation), and often neither is appropriate in that case. JABG can help states and communities to expand that range of options and ensure that the most effective approach can be used for each case. By strengthening the juvenile justice system and deterring youth from committing more serious crimes, JABG makes our neighborhoods safer and saves lives. JABG supports research-proven programs such as the Functional Family Therapy program, which has been shown to cut rates of re-arrest in half by intervening with families to teach them how to better control their children's behavior.

Overwhelming unmet need:  Every year, 1.4 million kids are charged with an offense for which an adult could be tried in a criminal court. It is estimated that Functional Family Therapy serves an extremely small proportion of serious offenders who could benefit from it.

Fiscally responsible: A cost-benefit analysis of Functional Family Therapy demonstrates that this program produces net public savings of roughly $32,000 per juvenile treated.

Reauthorization: JABG was reauthorized in January 2006. Under this reauthorization, priority is given to funding evidence-based programs proven to reduce recidivism. JABG funds can also now be used for research-based bullying and gang prevention, as well as juvenile offender reentry efforts.

Funding level: JABG received $49.5 million in Fiscal Year 2007 - a significant reduction from the $190 million that Congress appropriated in FY03 and the $250 million appropriated in FY02 and FY01. For FY08, the Administration's budget proposes to eliminate JABG funding and create a new "Child Safety and Juvenile Justice Block Grant", funded at a lower level than the programs it replaces. Fight Crime: Invest in Kids recommends that Congress reject any such block grant and restore JABG funding to the $250 million level.

For more information, please contact Miriam Rollin at (202) 776-0027 ext. 143 or miriam@fightcrime.org.