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Last updated on Thursday, March 5, 2009
(UNDATED) - It’s not just Hoosier schools and infrastructure getting a chunk of the federal stimulus package.
Indiana law enforcement agencies will split more than $20 million. The Indiana Criminal Justice Institute will redistribute the money in grant form to local projects, within the same benchmarks the state has set for spending the rest of the stimulus dollars: programs that will have a lasting impact without creating a lasting drain on local budgets after the stimulus money is gone.
Executive Director Neil Moore says a handful of proposals already in the pipeline are likely to qualify, including expansion of the court system's computerization project and instant fingerprint scanners for each county.
The institute is also likely to restore money for local drug task forces which Congress had cut last year. The state will take grant applications for the rest, and award money to the proposals which score highest. The law enforcement piece of the stimulus bill uses the Byrne/JAG Grant Program, named for an NYPD officer murdered by drug dealers in the 1980s.
Money can be spent in any of several areas, including anti-drug efforts, other police work, witness and victim assistance, courts and prosecutors, jails and community corrections, and research.
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