LLEBG Procedures

Funding prospects for defenders may be improved by designing a cooperative program together with local prosecutors, judges, probation or school officials, or treatment or other prevention programs.

Though the program is well funded, defenders can hope for only a small share of it, since the other purpose areas specified include general aid for local police and school security. Specific funding choices will be made at the local level.

The process is started by an application made to the Bureau of Justice Assistance in the U.S. Department of Justice by the mayor or county executive of a unit of local government.

That official, before submitting the application, must establish an advisory board to devise a plan for spending the money, although the plan is not formally binding on the official.

The advisory board must include, "but is not limited to," representatives from the local prosecutor's office, the local court system, the local public school system, and a local nonprofit group involved in any aspect of crime prevention or drug prevention or treatment.

The maximum amount payable to any local jurisdiction is tied to the jurisdiction's proportion of the state's overall violent crime, and the state's proportion of the national $530 million total is tied to its proportion of the nation's violent crime.

Importantly, any money within a state's proportional allocation which is not distributed locally through this type of application process will simply be given to the police in the state (through whatever administrative office is designated by the governor), and spending decisions will be made by police without input from a multi-disciplinary advisory board.

Defender offices interested in receiving funding under this program should 1) ensure that the local mayor or county executive is aware of the program and is planning an application, and 2) request representation on the advisory board, on the grounds that defender offices, as offender representatives, are indispensible to the design and success of programs which work constructively with offenders involved in any stage of the criminal justice system.