S. 3155: Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Reauthorization Act Introduced.

This is a revived Senate bill that was introduced in late June that could allow an increase funding for juvenile justice and allow more of the money to be spent for mental health and substance abuse services.

Source:Youth Today

S. 3155, introduced by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), would reauthorize the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act and could increase spending at the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention by more than $200 million in fiscal 2009.

Among the changes proposed in the bill:

* A 400 percent increase in Title V spending on delinquency prevention, to $272 million in fiscal 2009 and to $323 million in fiscal 2010. Title V was appropriated $61 million in fiscal 2008, according to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Juvenile mentoring, which grew from $10 million in fiscal 2007 to $70 million in fiscal 2008, would be folded into Title V programs.

* Creation of a new incentive grant program that would provide $60 million each year for spending on evidence-based programs that address mental health, substance abuse or work force training.

* $157 million in state formula grants for fiscal 2009, $83.4 million more than in fiscal 2008. This could reach $236.1 million by fiscal 2011.

Here is the full text of the Senate bill.

When J. Robert Flores, testified in December 5, 2007 at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the reauthorization of the act, he did not once say he supported the reauthorization, drawing criticism from juvenile justice advocates.

Here was the snippet of Flores' testimony to the Senate Committee:

In his testimony, Flores reaffirmed OJJDP's commitment to supporting programs to strengthen the juvenile justice system and combat delinquency. In discussing the JJDP Act, he focused on three key areas: the assistance OJJDP provides to States and communities to improve their juvenile justice systems, OJJDP's work on collaborative efforts to develop prevention strategies, and the emphasis OJJDP places on research and evaluation. He also briefly presented the Bush Administration's proposal for improving the juvenile justice grant programs process [ Note that Bush proposed rolling all juvenile justice money into a block grant.]:

The 2008 Budget proposes consolidating the several different juvenile justice grant programs, including those authorized by the JJDP Act, into just one flexible grant, which will permit States, localities, tribes, and nonprofit service providers to compete for funding based on local needs, as well as national priorities. The new Child Safety and Juvenile Justice Program would eliminate formulas and earmarks and focus on key priorities.

Read the full testimony of Administrator Flores on the OJJDP Web site.

This clearly tells you why Bush pushed to have juvenile justice money into one flexible grant and not allow the grants to be offered to the states whose organizations qualified for the grants: it was simply keep a full control of those grants in the OJJDP under Flores' supervision. By allowin the non-profit organizations to compete for funding, Flores can pick and choose those organizations and steer those grants to Bush Adminstration connections. In return, Flores gets perks and to allocate government funds for personal travel expenses and personal activity. This was nothing but a quid pro quo political strategy of fraud and cronyism on the expense of the youth/children and the organizations that most needed the grants. I hope that the OIG revisits Flores' testimony in December to the Senate Committee.