North Carolina Announces Funding to Help at-Risk & Court-Involved Youth

According to youth.gov, close to 2.1 million youth under the age of 18 are arrested in the United States each year; 1.7 million of these children have their cases heard in court.

And according to the Prison Policy Initiative, minority youth are astoundingly overrepresented among them.”

Though African American youth make up only 14% of the U.S. population under the age of 18 and Native American youth only 1%; 43% of boys and 34% of girls in juvenile facilities are African American and 3% of girls and 1.5% of boys are Native American.

To help address these disparities, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, in partnership with the Governor’s Crime Commission (GCC), is now accepting applications for the North Carolina Juvenile Justice Grant Program for FY 2020.

The program, which helps local jurisdictions provide aid to at-risk and court-involved youth, is funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Those eligible to apply include local government and non-profit agencies.

The GCC is encouraging applications in support of programs dedicated specifically to addressing juvenile delinquency and reforming the juvenile justice system in order to reduce the disproportionate number of minority youth that interact with it.

The GCC also encourages applicants with programs that provide assistance to minority youth throughout court decision points in the juvenile justice system, so they can expand their efforts to provide support during referral to court, admission to detention centers and cases where a minority youth is petitioned and/or found to be delinquent.

All applicants are urged to work collaboratively with other agencies to meet their objectives.

Agencies may apply for multiple grants as long as they are for different priority areas. Funding priorities, which are based on the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act, include the following:

• Raise the Age Implementation. Provides the support needed to make the necessary program expansion and infrastructural changes to adequately enforce the increase in the age of juvenile jurisdiction.
• School Justice Partnerships. Helps with the creation of school justice partnerships to foster safer school environments. Proposals that consider suspension or juvenile petitions alternatives for minor discipline problems will be given priority.
• 2020 Racial and Ethnic Disparities (RED). Assists with efforts to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system, and promotes racial equity.
• 2020 Children’s Justice. Helps with enforcing systems changes to improve the handling and outcomes of cases of child maltreatment in North Carolina.

Grant money is set to be disbursed over a two-year period between Oct. 1, 2020, to Sept. 3, 2022. Applications are due Jan. 31, 2019.

Submit your applications through the GCC’s Grant Enterprise Management System (GEMS). Applicants are required to have and need to provide proof of a valid federal DUNS number and must also be registered with the North Carolina Identity Management Service (NCID) and The System for Award Management (SAM).