What Happened?
The Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office received $435,000 in federal funding to help keep first-time, low level offenders out of jail. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs awarded identical grants to four city prosecutor’s offices across the nation as part of the Smart Prosecution program.
Goal
The DOJ’s Smart Prosecution program was designed to help city attorneys implement initiatives to reduce prison rates while enhancing safety in at-risk neighborhoods. The program is focused on rehabilitating first-time offenders that pose minimal threat to the safety of others without locking them up. The city attorneys should be instrumental in the creation of neighborhood panels that will decide how the criminal will pay off a debt to society without being a drain on resources in prison.
In the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, the $435,253 grant will be used to create two full-time positions for two years. These legal professionals will staff the City Attorney’s Neighborhood Justice Panels in South Los Angeles and Hollywood. The panels are part of City Attorney Mike Feuer’s Neighborhood Justice Program. Offenders who participate in the program can avoid facing criminal charges and have the opportunity to turn their lives around, KNX reported.
Smart Prosecution
The U.S. Department of Justice’s Smart Prosecution program is providing city attorney’s in Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and San Francisco with funding to build out neighborhood panels. The project allows first-time offenders who participate to engage in community service work as an alternative to jail time. The Smart Prosecution initiative is designed to promote data-driven, research-based approaches to criminal justice, focused on reforming processes to increase efficiency and sustainability.
The city attorneys will work with the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys to receive training and technical assistance for the development of smart prosecution practices throughout their communities. The end goal is for local court systems to birth a more efficient criminal justice system that benefits both the community and the criminal in preventing crime, righting the wrong and lowering prison rates. In total, the DOJ has set aside $870,506 in federal grants for the Smart Prosecution initiative in FY 2014.
Tribal Justice and Safety
The U.S. Department of Justice is also providing 169 grants - totaling $87 million – to American Indian tribes, Alaska Native villages, tribal consortia and tribal designees to improve law enforcement and prosecution practices in these communities. The $87 million in grants will be used to:
- Enhance law enforcement practices
- Sustain crime prevention
- Support intervention efforts
The grants are awarded through the DOJ’s Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation and will focus on nine specific areas:
- Public safety
- Community policing
- Justice systems planning
- Alcohol and substance abuse
- Corrections
- Correctional alternatives
- Violence against women
- Juvenile justice
- Tribal youth programs
Over the past five years, the Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation (CTAS) has worked collaboratively with other agencies to build out public safety and justice programs in tribal regions. The CTAS has awarded more than 1,100 grants for a total of $530 million.
Focus on Safety
Gov1 has followed many projects aimed at reducing recidivism while making the criminal justice system for cost-effective.