• The federal government has billions of dollars available to state and local governments through block grants.Police image by Zeno from Fotolia.com
  
  Since 1990, as state, county and municipal law enforcement agencies have struggled to keep up with the escalating wars on drugs, crime, terrorism and immigration enforcement, the federal government has disbursed billions of dollars in various grants at the state and local level to aid in the enforcement of laws and in the detention of those who break them.
  
  These funds are typically referred to as "block grants," which are lump sum awards given to the state or municipal governments to use as they see fit within an area of governmental service, such as law enforcement and criminal justice. While various programs have come and gone over the years, there are currently several opportunities for additional funding available to local law enforcement agencies.
  
  

Justice Assistance Grants

• The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), a division of the Department of Justice (DOJ), offers several sets of block grants for law enforcement agencies under state, municipal and tribal governments in all of the United States and U.S. territories under the Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program.
  
  While the BJA awards these grants to state and local agencies for law enforcement purposes, the funds are given with relatively few strings attached and may be spent on several areas under the "law enforcement" banner. Such areas include community patrols, judicial funding, community awareness and education programs, corrections and "witness incentives."
  
  BJA has a set formula-- as mandated by Congress-- to determine a state or local government's eligibility for JAG funding. Such criteria include a state's population and violent crime rates.
  
  Once BJA determines the amount to be granted to a state and it's local law enforcement agencies, 60 percent of the total amount is given to the state government, with the remaining 40 percent allocated to eligible local agencies.
  
  While these grants do not come with heavily mandated or stringent spending requirements, states and local recipients must follow certain reporting requirements by filing quarterly "performance metrics" reports, quarterly financial status reports and an annual program performance report with the BJA.
  
  

Local JAG

• An example of a grant available specifically to local law enforcement (municipal and county) is the Edward Byrne Memorial JAG.
  
  While actual award amounts from this JAG vary year to year, the grants are awarded to local agencies to bolster their law enforcement efforts with an emphasis on multi-jurisdictional drug and gang task force development and domestic violence prevention, as well as all other facets of law enforcement according to jurisdictional needs.
  
  

State JAG

• An example of a BJA state-level JAG is the Edward Byrne Memorial State JAG.
  
  At the state level, the BJA does not attempt to steer funding to any specific program, as it does (to a small degree) at the local level. Instead, the awards are given as omnibus law enforcement grants, and allocation is left entirely in the hands of the state government.
  
  As is the case with local grants, state grant amounts vary year to year. Updated annual award amounts can be found on the BJA website.