Senators Push Mukasey For Juvenile
Justice Grant Application Information
WASHINGTON (Friday, June 27, 2008)
– Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) today led a bipartisan group of
senators in sending a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey,
pushing for greater transparency of the policies related to the
grant-making authority of the Department of Justice’s Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). Leahy was
joined by Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.),
Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.), and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).
The letter follows recent reports
in The Washington Post
and Youth Today
that OJJDP has awarded grants to organizations with short,
unproven track records over organizations that have long
standing records of success in the juvenile justice field. The
letter requests that the Attorney General provide documents
relating to OJJDP policy on the awarding of grants,
correspondence between the office and rejected grant applicants,
and communications from OJJDP Director J. Robert Flores, who is
currently under investigation by the Department’s Office of the
Inspector General.
A bill to reauthorize the Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, the law that governs
OJJDP and the grants it awards, was introduced June 18 by Leahy,
Specter and Kohl. It is expected to be considered by the Senate
Judiciary Committee after the July 4 recess.
The signatories to the letter are
all members of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Leahy,
Specter, Kohl and Feinstein are also members of the Senate
Judiciary Committee, which has oversight authority over the
Department of Justice. The text of the letter follows. Click
here for a PDF.
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June 27, 2008
The Honorable Michael B. Mukasey
Attorney General
United States Department of
Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear Attorney General Mukasey:
Last December, the Senate
Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the reauthorization of the
Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention Act (JJDPA).
Several witnesses at that hearing asserted that the Department
of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention (OJJDP), the office charged with assisting states in
implementing the principles and requirements of the JJDPA, lacks
sufficient transparency in how it carries out these functions.
Subsequent press reports,
inquiries, and hearings have raised further questions about
OJJDP’s exercise of its grant-making authority. Pursuant to the
Senate’s oversight authority, and particularly as we move
forward in considering recently introduced legislation
reauthorizing the JJDPA, it is important that we understand the
basis of these concerns. To that end, we are requesting that
you provide us with information and documentation regarding the
policies and practices used by OJJDP to award grants and the
basis for decisions the Office has made. Similar concerns about
competitive grant programs administered throughout the National
Institute of Justice led the Senate to request an audit of all
such programs by the Department’s Office of Inspector General.
As noted on the Department’s own
website, OJJDP is charged with using a competitive grant award
process that ranks competing bids to determine which state and
community-based organizations will receive discretionary grants
to implement programs that combat juvenile delinquency.
However, the publication
Youth Today, along with
The Washington Post
and others, have noted that the bids of some youth service
organizations with long records of success have recently been
rejected in favor of organizations with far shorter track
records. For example, the World Golf Foundation and a sexual
abstinence program run by the Best Friends Foundation, both of
which are reported to be politically well-connected, received
large grants despite being rated lower by the Department’s
career officials than dozens of proven youth services providers
that did not receive grants. The significant drop in overall
grant funding for juvenile justice programs over the past
several years makes those grants that are awarded all the more
precious and renders the lack of transparency in OJJDP’s
grant-awarding practices all the more troubling.
Perhaps even more disturbing,
The Washington Post
recently reported that OJJDP Administrator J. Robert Flores, who
made these and other controversial grant decisions, has been the
subject of an investigation by the Department’s Office of
Inspector General and a referral for possible criminal
prosecution, apparently for questionable hiring practices and
alleged use of government funds for personal travel.
In order to ensure that Congress
has the information it needs to perform effective oversight of
OJJDP, and to better inform the reauthorization of the JJDPA, we
request the following information be provided to us:
-
All OJJDP policies and
procedures governing the evaluation of grant applications
and the awarding of grants.
-
A list of applicants for
discretionary grants awarded by OJJDP for Fiscal Year 2007
and 2008, including the requested funding amount, the
process by which the application was reviewed, whether there
was any external peer review, the applicant’s technical
evaluation scores, and, if the applicant was funded, the
amount awarded.
-
All documents relating to the
technical review of applicants for discretionary grants
awarded by OJJDP for Fiscal Year 2007 and 2008, including
all records and notes from the technical evaluation, the
official decision memoranda, and any other communications
relating to the evaluation or decision-making process used
to award the grants.
-
All correspondence between
OJJDP and organizations that bid unsuccessfully for
discretionary grant awards for Fiscal Year 2007 and 2008
discussing the rejection of their grant proposals.
-
All communications to or from
OJJDP Administrator J. Robert Flores relating to any grant
proposals or organizations considered for awards in Fiscal
Year 2007 and 2008.
-
To the extent permissible with
respect to continuing investigations, a summary of all
investigations or non-routine audits concerning Mr. Flores
or other OJJDP officials who participated in the grant
evaluation and decision-making process.
We appreciate your prompt
attention to this matter so that we can work together to ensure
that there is transparency and fairness in OJJDP’s
administration of important grant programs, and we can work to
promptly reauthorize the JJDPA.
Sincerely,
PATRICK
LEAHY ARLEN
SPECTER
Chairman
Ranking Member
Committee on the
Judiciary Committee on
the Judiciary
BARBARA
MIKULSKI HERB KOHL
Chairwoman
United States Senator
Commerce, Justice, and Science
Subcommittee
Committee on Appropriations
DIANNE FEINSTEIN
United States Senator
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