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TITLE V COMMUNITY PREVENTION GRANTS

What it is:  The Title V Incentive Grants for Local Delinquency Prevention Programs, commonly known as the Community Prevention Grants program, is the only federal funding source dedicated solely to the prevention of youth crime and violence. Created in 1992 and reauthorized in 2002 as part of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, Title V is a grant program to fund collaborative, comprehensive, community-based delinquency prevention efforts to reach young people before they make a choice that puts them on the wrong path in life. The grants can be used to fund a wide range of programs, including after-school activities, mentoring, and tutoring, as well as drop-out, gang, and substance abuse prevention.

How it works:  The U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention administers grants to State Advisory Groups (SAGs), which oversee a state's juvenile justice plan. State funding levels are based on a formula determined by the number of youth in each state. The SAGs then award grants of up to three years to local jurisdictions through a competitive process. Each state or locality must match at least 50% of the grant with cash or in-kind contributions.

Whom it serves:  More than 1,525 communities received Title V grants between 1994 and 2003.

Why it's important:  Title V-funded programs geared toward preventing youth crime and violence are critical to our efforts to make America a safer place to live. For example, Title V funds after-school programs that can cut crime by connecting children to caring adults and providing constructive activities during the prime time for juvenile crime, from 3:00 to 6:00 PM. One study compared five housing projects without Boys & Girls Clubs to five receiving new clubs. At the beginning, drug activity and vandalism were the same. But by the time the study ended, the projects without the programs had 50 percent more vandalism and scored 37 percent worse on drug activity.

Overwhelming unmet need:  Prevention activities, such as those supported by Title V, remain so woefully under-funded that they can reach only a fraction of the kids who would benefit from them. For example, because of lack of funding for after-school programs, more than 14 million children and teens go home from school to an empty house each week. Research shows that these children are much more likely to drink, smoke, use drugs, commit a crime, and become a victim of a crime.

Funding level:  In Fiscal Year 2002 and prior years, Title V received $95 million. In FY07, Title V received $64 million, rejecting the Administration's proposal to cut Title V funding in half. For FY08, the Administration's budget proposes to eliminate Title V 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, at a minimum, restore funding to $95 million and ensure that additional funding above the $95 million level is provided to cover any earmarks.

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