Department of Justice Announces More Than $341 Million in Grants to Combat America’s Addiction Crisis

The Department of Justice today announced grant awards totaling more than $341 million to help fight America’s addiction crisis. Office of Justice Programs (OJP) Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Katharine T. Sullivan discussed this year's grant awards during a roundtable discussion of mental health and addiction issues led by Second Lady Karen Pence.

“The addiction crisis has taken an enormous toll on America’s families and communities, eroding public health, threatening public safety and claiming tens of thousands of lives year after year,” said Attorney General William P. Barr. “Through comprehensive measures taken by this administration, we have been able to curtail the opioid epidemic, but new and powerful drugs are presenting exceptional challenges that we must be prepared to meet. The Justice Department’s substantial investments in enforcement, response, and treatment will help us overcome these challenges and work towards freeing Americans from abuse and addiction.”

“If we hope to defeat an enemy as powerful, persistent and adaptable as illicit drugs, we must be at least as determined and versatile, focusing our ingenuity and resources on curbing abuse and fighting addiction,” said OJP's Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney Katharine T. Sullivan. “It was a privilege to join the Second Lady in announcing these investments, which will enable criminal justice officials and substance abuse, mental health and other medical professionals to pool their assets and bring the full weight of our public safety and treatment systems down on this epidemic that has already caused so much harm.”

Illegal drugs and illicit drug use have claimed the lives of nearly 400,000 Americans since the turn of the century. Powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl are exacting an enormous toll on families and communities, and an emergence in the use of methamphetamines and other psychostimulants is drawing drug traffickers and driving up overdose rates. Three years ago, President Trump declared a Public Health Emergency and initiated a whole-of-government approach dedicated to ending this national tragedy. The Department of Justice has invested unprecedented levels of funding in combating the addiction crisis. The awards announced today build on those earlier investments.

Funding is made available through the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), components of OJP.

More than $147 million under BJA’s Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant and Substance Abuse Site-based Program will help prosecutors develop strategies to address violent crime caused by illegal opioid distribution and abuse.
More than $57 million will fund BJA’s Adult Drug Court and Veterans Treatment Court Discretionary Grant Program, which helps states, state courts, local courts and federally recognized tribal governments implement and enhance the operations of adult drug courts and veteran treatment courts. BJA also awarded more than $12 million for related training and technical assistance.
BJA awarded more than $28 million to fund the Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, which enhances the capacity of regulatory and law enforcement agencies and public health officials to collect and analyze controlled substance prescription data and other scheduled chemical products through a centralized database administered by an authorized agency.
BJA awarded $28 million to support the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment for State Prisoners Program, which helps states develop and implement residential substance abuse treatment programs within state and local correctional facilities, as well as detention facilities, in which inmates are incarcerated for a time sufficient to permit substance abuse treatment.
BJA awarded $2.6 million to fund the National Community Courts Site-based and Training and Technical Assistance Initiative, which helps community court grantees and practitioners develop effective responses to low-level and non-violent offenses.
OJJDP awarded over $19 million across 21 jurisdictions under its Family Drug Court Program to build the capacity of state and local courts, units of local government and federally recognized tribal governments to enhance existing family drug courts or implement statewide or countywide family drug court practices. The program aims to increase collaboration with substance abuse treatment and child welfare systems to ensure the provision of treatment and other services for families that improve child, parent and family outcomes.
More than $5 million will support OJJDP’s Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Program, designed to help jurisdictions that want to establish or enhance a juvenile drug treatment court and to improve court system operations and treatment services.
OJJDP awarded $14 million under two categories of its Mentoring Opportunities for Youth Initiative to address opioid and other substance abuse.
Just over $4 million was awarded to support youth mentoring organizations that have a partnership with a public or private substance abuse treatment agency to provide mentoring services for youth impacted by unlawful or addictive opioid use.
Nearly $10 million was awarded to build mentoring program capacity in targeted regions throughout the country to support statewide or regional approaches to expanding mentoring services for youth impacted by opioids.
Nearly $9 million will fund OJJDP’s Opioid Affected Youth Initiative, which will support states, communities, tribes and nonprofits implementing programs and strategies that identify, respond to, treat and support children, youth and families impacted by the opioid epidemic.
Another $1 million will fund specialized training to serve families impacted by opioids as part of a larger award under OJJDP’s Child Abuse Training for Judicial and Court Personnel
OVC will fund more than $12 million under the Enhancing Community Responses to America’s Drug Crisis: Serving Our Youngest Crime Victims Program to support direct services to children and youth who are crime victims as a result of the nation's addiction crisis; and nearly $1.5 million to one organization to support training and technical assistance for the direct services grantees.
NIJ will fund nearly $1.5 million on Research and Evaluation on Drugs and Crime, which will support rigorous applied research on evidence-based tools, protocols and policy efforts that will address drug traffickers, markets and related violence. It will also fund over $2.3 million for other related research.

A full list of the awards, organized under specific grant programs and listing awardees by state, is available here.

Additional information about FY 2020 grant awards from the Office of Justice Programs can be found online at the OJP Award Data Page.

Ditto.

I have been dealing with a close friend with the problem for the last 20 years. She started drinking around 12, the mental illnesses kicked in in her early 20's.She is reasonably normal after she has been in the jail or mental hospital for weeks and they force her to take her meds.

Inevitably, she is released. Usually to some half-way house or other unsupervised shithole with other unfortunate souls with similar mental issues.

And the cycle starts all over again - for the last 20 years. ,p>In California, there is a law that eliminated the ability of Judges or other medical professionals to have these people committed to a lock down facility. I'm sorry, but that is what they need to have the slightest chance at normalcy. The law is the LPS Act - Lanterman-Petris-Short - signed during R.Reagan's first term when the theory was to empty the so-called "Loonie Bins" and "Snake Pits" and integrate these people into the local towns and cities. And all that before meth and the like entered the picture. Now it is 100X worse. California needs to repeal the LPS Act, build a new series of supervised facilities and allow the local authorities to get these people off the streets and into a facility where they are forced to take their medicine. The other states with similar laws need to repeal those as well.

These people have the emotional maturity of 12 year olds - at best, and yet, our society is allowing children in adult bodies to roam and cause chaos at will. No sane person would allow their child free reign in their town. Nor should we allow these adults, in age only, the freedom wreak havoc with no thought of the consequences of their actions.

This sounds harsh and totalitarian, but allowing them to self-medicate with alcohol and meth, as we have for the last 50 years, has resulted in a disastrous harvest for them, their families and those that unconditionally love them.

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