The Palm Beach County Criminal Justice Commission was recently awarded two federal grants from the United States Department of Justice totaling nearly $1 million.
CJC received a FY-2011 Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program: Planning and Implementation Grant of $249,955 which will enable the Juvenile Drug Court to increase support of co-occurring mental and substance abuse disorders. This will increase public safety by facilitating collaboration among the criminal justice, juvenile justice and mental health and substance abuse systems.
The grant was awarded Sept. 6, 2012 and ends Sept. 30, 2013. It was written by CJC intern Jyota Snyder, a former student atFloridaAtlanticUniversity, under the direction of CJC Program Manager Becky Walker.
An award of $750,000 from the FY-2012 Second Chance Act Adult Offender Re-entry Program for Planning and Demonstration: Implementation Grant program begins Oct. 1, 2012 and continues until Sept. 30, 2013. This funding will allow the current re-entry program known as the Regional and State Transitional Offender Re-entry Initiative to continue its collaboration with the state ofFlorida, the Public Defender’s Office, Gulfstream Goodwill, The Lord’s Place and the City ofRiviera Beach.
The grant provides for comprehensive services to men and women incarcerated by the Florida Department of Corrections in certain re-entry prisons. Services include case management, education, substance abuse treatment, family reunification and housing to reduce the recidivism rate inPalm BeachCounty. Craig Spatara is the program manager and author of the grant, which was awarded Aug. 28. This is the second grant CJC has received for re-entry from the U.S. Department of Justice.
CJC was created in 1988 and has an established history of building strong partnerships to improve the criminal justice system in the county.
The four components of the Criminal Justice Commission include crime prevention, law enforcement, courts, and corrections.