Five Tribes in District of South Dakota Awarded $3,740,989 in Additional Public Safety Funding
SIOUX FALLS - The Department of Justice announced today that it has awarded over $273.4 million in grants to improve public safety, serve victims of crime, combat violence against women and support youth programs in American Indian and Alaska Native communities.
“Violent crime and domestic abuse in American Indian and Alaska Native communities remain at unacceptably high levels, and they demand a response that is both clear and comprehensive," said Attorney General William P. Barr. “We will continue to work closely with our tribal partners to guarantee they have the resources they need to curb violence and bring healing to the victims most profoundly affected by it."
Five Tribes in the District of South Dakota were awarded $3,740,989 in funding for various programs. The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe received $450,000 in funding for the Violence Against Women Tribal Governments Program; the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe received $716,968 for the Tribal Victim Services Program; the Oglala Sioux Tribe received $738,871, of which $449,318 is for the Violence Against Women Tribal Governments Program, and $289,553 is for the Children’s Justice Act Partnerships for Indian Communities; the Rosebud Sioux Tribe received $1,508,794, of which $792,134 is for the Public Safety and Community Policing program, and $716,660 is for the Justice Systems and Alcohol and Substance Abuse program; and the Yankton Sioux Tribe received $326,356 for Children’s Justice Act Partnerships for Indian Communities.
“These DOJ grants for additional public safety funding are supplemental to existing funding levels sustained through the Bureau of Indian Affairs," said U.S. Attorney Parsons. “It is our hope that they will help bridge the gap for these Tribal governments and go a long way toward making every community in South Dakota as safe as it can possibly be."
Nationwide, 236 grants were awarded to 149 American Indian tribes, Alaska Native villages and other tribal designees through the Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation, a streamlined application for tribal-specific grant programs. Of the $118 million awarded via CTAS, just over $62.6 million comes from the Office of Justice Programs, about $33.1 million from the Office on Violence Against Women and more than $23.2 million from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. A portion of the funding will support tribal youth mentoring and intervention services, help native communities implement requirements of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, and provide training and technical assistance to tribal communities. Another $5.5 million was funded by OJP’s Bureau of Justice Assistance to provide training and technical assistance to CTAS awardees.
The Department also announced awards and other programming totaling $167.2 million in a set-aside program to serve victims of crime. The awards are intended to help tribes develop, expand and improve services to victims by supporting programming and technical assistance. About $25.6 million of these awards were awarded under CTAS and are included in the $118 million detailed above.
CTAS funding helps tribes develop and strengthen their justice systems’ response to crime, while expanding services to meet their communities’ public safety needs. The awards cover 10 purpose areas: public safety and community policing; justice systems planning; alcohol and substance abuse; corrections and correctional alternatives; children’s justice act partnerships; services for victims of crime; violence against women; juvenile justice; violent crime reduction; and tribal youth programs.
The Department also provided $6.1 million to help tribes to comply with federal law on sex offender registration and notification, $1.7 million in separate funding to assist tribal youth and nearly $500,000 to support tribal research on missing and murdered indigenous women and children and other public safety-related topics.
Today’s announcement is part of the Justice Department’s ongoing initiative to increase engagement, coordination and action on public safety in American Indian and Alaska Native communities.
A listing of today’s announced CTAS awards is available at: https://www.justice.gov/tribal/awards. A listing of all other announced tribal awards are available at: https://go.usa.gov/xVJuE.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
