Repost from Friday: Senators Push Mukasey For Juvenile Justice Grant Application Information.

Hat tip from former OJJDP employee and whistleblower Scott Peterson for passing this to me. ;)



Senators Push Mukasey For Juvenile Justice Grant Application Information



WASHINGTON (Friday, June 27, 2008) - Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) today
led a bipartisan group of senators in sending a letter to Attorney
General Michael Mukasey, pushing for greater transparency of the
policies related to the grant-making authority of the Department of
Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).
Leahy was joined by Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), Barbara Mikulski
(D-Md.), Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.), and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

The letter follows recent reports in The Washington Post and Youth Today
that OJJDP has awarded grants to organizations with short, unproven
track records over organizations that have long standing records of
success in the juvenile justice field. The letter requests that the
Attorney General provide documents relating to OJJDP policy on the
awarding of grants, correspondence between the office and rejected grant
applicants, and communications from OJJDP Director J. Robert Flores, who
is currently under investigation by the Department's Office of the
Inspector General.

A bill to reauthorize the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Act, the law that governs OJJDP and the grants it awards, was introduced
June 18 by Leahy, Specter and Kohl. It is expected to be considered by
the Senate Judiciary Committee after the July 4 recess.

The signatories to the letter are all members of the Senate
Appropriations Committee. Leahy, Specter, Kohl and Feinstein are also
members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight authority
over the Department of Justice. The text of the letter follows. A PDF
is also available.

June 27, 2008


The Honorable Michael B. Mukasey

Attorney General

United States Department of Justice

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20530


Dear Attorney General Mukasey:


Last December, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the
reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention Act
(JJDPA). Several witnesses at that hearing asserted that the Department
of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
(OJJDP), the office charged with assisting states in implementing the
principles and requirements of the JJDPA, lacks sufficient transparency
in how it carries out these functions.


Subsequent press reports, inquiries, and hearings have raised further
questions about OJJDP's exercise of its grant-making authority.
Pursuant to the Senate's oversight authority, and particularly as we
move forward in considering recently introduced legislation
reauthorizing the JJDPA, it is important that we understand the basis of
these concerns. To that end, we are requesting that you provide us with
information and documentation regarding the policies and practices used
by OJJDP to award grants and the basis for decisions the Office has
made. Similar concerns about competitive grant programs administered
throughout the National Institute of Justice led the Senate to request
an audit of all such programs by the Department's Office of Inspector
General.

As noted on the Department's own website, OJJDP is charged with using a
competitive grant award process that ranks competing bids to determine
which state and community-based organizations will receive discretionary
grants to implement programs that combat juvenile delinquency. However,
the publication Youth Today, along with The Washington Post and others,
have noted that the bids of some youth service organizations with long
records of success have recently been rejected in favor of organizations
with far shorter track records. For example, the World Golf Foundation
and a sexual abstinence program run by the Best Friends Foundation, both
of which are reported to be politically well-connected, received large
grants despite being rated lower by the Department's career officials
than dozens of proven youth services providers that did not receive
grants. The significant drop in overall grant funding for juvenile
justice programs over the past several years makes those grants that are
awarded all the more precious and renders the lack of transparency in
OJJDP's grant-awarding practices all the more troubling.

Perhaps even more disturbing, The Washington Post recently reported that
OJJDP Administrator J. Robert Flores, who made these and other
controversial grant decisions, has been the subject of an investigation
by the Department's Office of Inspector General and a referral for
possible criminal prosecution, apparently for questionable hiring
practices and alleged use of government funds for personal travel.

In order to ensure that Congress has the information it needs to perform
effective oversight of OJJDP, and to better inform the reauthorization
of the JJDPA, we request the following information be provided to us:

All OJJDP policies and procedures governing the evaluation of grant
applications and the awarding of grants.

A list of applicants for discretionary grants awarded by OJJDP for
Fiscal Year 2007 and 2008, including the requested funding amount, the
process by which the application was reviewed, whether there was any
external peer review, the applicant's technical evaluation scores, and,
if the applicant was funded, the amount awarded.

All documents relating to the technical review of applicants for
discretionary grants awarded by OJJDP for Fiscal Year 2007 and 2008,
including all records and notes from the technical evaluation, the
official decision memoranda, and any other communications relating to
the evaluation or decision-making process used to award the grants.

All correspondence between OJJDP and organizations that bid
unsuccessfully for discretionary grant awards for Fiscal Year 2007 and
2008 discussing the rejection of their grant proposals.

All communications to or from OJJDP Administrator J. Robert Flores
relating to any grant proposals or organizations considered for awards
in Fiscal Year 2007 and 2008.

To the extent permissible with respect to continuing investigations, a
summary of all investigations or non-routine audits concerning Mr.
Flores or other OJJDP officials who participated in the grant evaluation
and decision-making process.

We appreciate your prompt attention to this matter so that we can work
together to ensure that there is transparency and fairness in OJJDP's
administration of important grant programs, and we can work to promptly
reauthorize the JJDPA.

Sincerely,

PATRICK LEAHY
Chairman
Committee on the Judiciary


ARLEN
SPECTER
Ranking Member
Committee on the Judiciary

BARBARA MIKULSKI HERB KOHL

Chairwoman
United States Senator
Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee

Committee on Appropriations


DIANNE FEINSTEIN
United States Senator


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Youth Today also has this posted with more details.

Update: Jason Leopold of The Public Record notifed me that he will be posting this latest on his website and linking to Justice League. I only hope that OJJDP J. Robert Flores is fired from his job in the grant decision making scandal. More names will most likely surface from this growing scandal.