Justice Department Announces $15.5 Million In Awards To Support Sex Offender Registration, Assessment, Intervention

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Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs

Sep 16, 2013, 11:33 ET

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) Office of Justice Programs (OJP) today announced more than $15.5 million in Fiscal Year 2013 grant assistance for states, territories and tribal governments to use in implementing, training, maintaining and enhancing sex offender programming throughout the United States.

More than $13.3 million will be used to develop or enhance sex offender registration programs; improve law enforcement and other justice agency information sharing as it relates to sex offender registration and notification; and implement other efforts aimed at furthering the objectives of Title I of the Adam Walsh Act, the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).

The remaining funds, administered by OJP's Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking (SMART), break down into four areas: Sex Offender Treatment Intervention and Progress Scale (SOTIPS) project sites support, the Sex Offender Management Fellowship program, the SORNA Tribal Training and Technical Assistance Program, and further support for the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website (NSOPW) operation.

The Adam Walsh Act was signed into law July 27, 2006 and is designed to protect children and adults from sexual exploitation and violent crime. The Act also aims to prevent child abuse and child pornography, promote Internet safety, and honor the memory of Adam Walsh and other crime victims. SORNA was enacted to protect the public from convicted sex offenders and offenders against children by establishing a comprehensive national system for the registration and notification to the public of those offenders.

The SMART Office awarded nearly $210,000 to the SOTIPS project to further training and technical assistance, and support additional data collection and training activities for two SOTIPS implementation sites.

An award of $149,747 was made for the Sex Offender Management Fellowship Program to assist SMART in focusing on ways to broaden programming designed to improve the prevention of, and education about, sexual violence and victimization in our communities.

The SMART Office will also fund the SORNA Tribal Training and Technical Assistance Program, awarding $1 million to provide targeted training and technical assistance to tribes that have opted to become SORNA registration jurisdictions, with the emphasis on hard-to-reach and underserved tribes.

More than $825,000 will support maintenance, operations and enhancements of the NSOPW and the Tribe and Territory Sex Offender Registry System. NSOPW links to state, territory, and tribal sex offender public websites and allows the public to search for registered sex offenders on a national scale.

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SOURCE Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs