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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEOJP
MONDAY, MARCH 29, 1999202/307-0703

OFFICE OF JUSTICE PROGRAMS RELEASES NEW 1999 PROGRAM PLAN

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department's Office of Justice Programs (OJP) has released its new Program Plan for FY 1999. This year, the 173-page guide has a new format that is issue-oriented, making it easier to use.

Instead of listing information by organizational office, this year the Program Plan is organized by issue areas, such as Empowering Communities to Address Crime, Protecting and Supporting Victims of Crime, and Addressing Crime and Justice for American Indians & Alaska Natives. Also, there are chapters dealing with Countering Terrorism & Ensuring Domestic Preparedness, and Managing Offenders.

"At OJP, we've been striving to bring cohesion to our many funding streams," Assistant Attorney General for OJP Laurie Robinson said. "We hope this new design to the Program Plan will make it easier to find all the resources available that come into OJP and its bureaus to help target grant opportunities."

The Program Plan primarily describes the discretionary grants OJP will support in FY 1999. Discretionary grants are awarded directly by OJP bureaus and offices to state and local agencies and private organizations.

The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) was established by the Justice Assistance Act of 1984 and later reauthorized to provide federal leadership, coordination, and assistance to make the nation's justice system more efficient and effective in preventing and controlling crime. OJP and its program bureaus and offices are responsible for collecting statistical data and conducting analyses; identifying emerging criminal justice issues; developing and testing promising approaches to address these issues; evaluating program results, and disseminating these findings and other information to state and local governments.

The bureaus are: the Bureau of Justice Assistance, National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and the Office for Victims of Crime. In addition to these five bureaus, OJP includes the Violence Against Women Office, which leads a comprehensive national effort to combine tough new federal laws with assistance to states and localities in the fight against domestic violence and other crimes against women.

The OJP program offices include the Executive Office for Weed and Seed; the Corrections Program Office; the Office for Local and State Domestic Preparedness Support; and the Drug Courts Program Office. OJP's American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) Affairs Desk, coordinates AI/AN-related programmatic activity across the bureaus and program offices and serves as an information resource center for American Indian and Alaskan Native criminal justice interests.

Besides discretionary grants, a number of formula grants are awarded to states or units of local government. These OJP formula grants include the Bureau of Justice Assistance's Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance grants, the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grant (JAIBG). Other formula grants include the Violence Against Women Office STOP grant program and The Victim Compensation Formula Grants, administered by the Office for Victims of Crime.

Training and technical assistance opportunities are also described in the Program Plan. Information is also available through other Websites, clearinghouses and other information sources.

To obtain a copy of the Office of Justice Programs Fiscal Year 1999 Program Plan, contact the National Criminal Justice Reference Service at 1-800/851-3420. For questions about various grant programs within the Program Plan, contact the Department of Justice Response Center at 1-800/421-6770. For additional information about OJP and its programs, visit OJP's web site at: https://ojp.gov

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For additional information contact the Office of Congressional and Public Affairs at 202/307-0703.