Lisa Walbolt

Justice Research and Statistics Association

In 1997, Congress passed HR 3, the Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grants (JABG) Act, creating the JABG program. The program requires states to distribute funds to local units of government according to a mandated formula. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) was delegated the authority to administer the JABG program.

According to the JABG Guidance Manual, published by OJJDP, "each State shall allocate to each unit of local government an amount, by formula, based on a combination of law enforcement expenditures . . . for each unit of local government and the average annual number of Uniform Crime Report part 1 violent crimes . . . reported by each unit of local government for the three most recent calendar years for which data are available" (Section 2.6, page 9). Since many states may not have this information readily available in a usable format, the Justice Research and Statistics Association (JRSA), with assistance from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), provides information to assist these states in determining allocation amounts for each local government. With guidance from OJJDP, JRSA established the JABG Technical Support Center to provide states with the data they need to make their awards.

According to the legislation, allocation amounts are to be based on a formula of part 1 violent crimes and law enforcement expenditures for the three most recent years for which data are available. JRSA combines information on violent crimes (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program with data on local justice expenditures (direct operating expenditures for police, corrections, and judicial and legal services) collected from local units of government by the Census Bureau. The data are combined according to the formula and provided in the form of spreadsheets to the states via JRSA's JABG Technical Support Center Web site (www.jrsa.org/jaibg).

Most of the information provided by JRSA is available to all visitors to the Web site. This information covers the JABG program, the data sources used, and state data spreadsheets. State allocation information, however, is provided only to assist States in determining their awards; to avoid confusion, this information is password-protected for several reasons:

• The spreadsheets are interactive, in that they can be modified by states. If a change is made anywhere on the spreadsheet, the whole document will recalculate the award amounts. Inadvertent changes to the document could have significant effects on reported award amounts.

• States are not required to use the data provided by JRSA. JRSA provides matched information from the FBI and the Census Bureau as a service to states; states with more recent information may choose to use these data and compute award allocations independently.

• States may request a waiver of the required 75% pass-through amount. The spreadsheets provided on the JRSA Web site are based on this 75% pass-through, but can be modified by states to reflect the actual pass-through amount.

• States may adjust the allocation amounts. According to the legislation, awards under $5,000 are retained by the state to expend on services to the localities not eligible for awards. States have various ways of expending this money, but some states may choose to increase county awards to provide county services to smaller localities.

The allocation information provided on the JABG Web site (www.jrsa.org/jaibg), therefore, might not reflect the actual amounts awarded to local governments. Users who would like information on state award amounts are encouraged to contact state administrators to determine how final allocations were awarded. Visitors who have questions about awards as calculated by JRSA may contact JRSA at jaibg@jrsa.org for assistance.