SHREVEPORT/ LAFAYETTE/ALEXANDRIA/MONROE/LAKE CHARLES, La. - United States Attorney Stephanie A. Finley and the Department of Justice announced that 14 grants totaling more than $2.3 million have been awarded to agencies within the Western District of Louisiana through the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA).
An individual grant of $1 million was awarded to the City of Shreveport through the BJA’s Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Program. The Planning and Implementation Grant’s goal is to improve community safety as part of a strategy to advance neighborhood revitalization. The city is required to set up a plan to reduce crime in a target neighborhood and then begin implementation during the project period.
Nine other grants totaling $534,516 were awarded to law enforcement through the BJA as part of the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant. The grant is awarded to local governments to support a broad range of activities to prevent and control crime.
They include:
Alexandria: Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office: $85,320 to fund the Metro Narcotics Task Force and provide overtime;
Bastrop: Morehouse Parish Sheriff’s Office: $12,780 to update vehicle equipment;
Bossier City: Bossier City government: $29,153 to provide overtime, education and mobile radios;
Franklin: St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office: $13,164 to purchase safety and training equipment;
Lafayette: Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office: $97,880 to support law enforcement initiatives to purchase servers, laptops and computer workstations;
Lake Charles: Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office: $71,607 to purchase rescue equipment, software, radar equipment and a patrol motorcycle;
Monroe: Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Office: $90,640 to purchase law enforcement equipment, including vehicle wireless routers and digi-ticket devices;
Natchitoches: City of Natchitoches: $13,548 to purchase surveillance equipment for the drug task force; and
Shreveport: City of Shreveport: $120,424 to purchase police patrol boats and patrol vehicles.
Three crime labs in the District have been awarded a total of $487,989 through the DNA Capacity Enhancement and Backlog Reduction Program.
The labs awarded are:
Lake Charles: Southwest Criminalistics Laboratory: $100,000 to upgrade equipment and for training;
New Iberia: Acadiana Crime Lab: $116,875 to maintain and expand employment; and
Shreveport: North Louisiana Criminalistics Laboratory: $271,114 to increase amount of cases analyzed and for training.
The 14th Judicial District Attorney’s Office in Lake Charles was named the recipient of $350,000 through the Drug Court Discretionary Grant Program. The funds are to be used to build a single jurisdiction drug court. It is also tasked with preventing recidivism through targeted treatment, vocational services and community reintegration programs.
“The coordinated federal support will provide much needed funds for our local law enforcement partners and important initiatives for our communities to develop comprehensive crime strategies," Finley stated. “I am especially pleased to make this announcement for the Western District of Louisiana. I want to thank the members of our grant committee who spend many hours to make sure that our law enforcement community has a chance to receive these funds."
The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) provides federal leadership in developing the nation’s capacity to prevent and control crime, administer justice and assist victims. The OJP has six bureaus and offices: the Bureau of Justice Assistance; the Bureau of Justice Statistics; the National Institute of Justice; the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; the Office for Victims of Crime; and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking (SMART). For more information on grant award programs, visit www.bja.gov.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
