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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 11:18 pm
Time: 11:18 pm
Results for federal funding
1 results foundAuthor: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division Title: Audit of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Title II Part B Formula Grant Program Related to Allegations of the OJJDP's Inappropriate Conduct Summary: In September 2014, the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) Investigations Division issued a report of investigation into allegations that the state of Wisconsin's Office of Justice Assistance (Wisconsin) submitted fraudulent compliance data to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) in order to receive grant funds from the OJJDP's Title II Part B Formula Grant Program (grant program). The investigation concluded that Wisconsin submitted inaccurate compliance reports to the OJJDP, failed to perform required physical inspections of secure detention facilities housing juveniles, did not have an adequate monitoring system to ensure compliance with grant requirements, and did not accurately define its monitoring universe as required by the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 2002 (JJDPA). Subsequent to the conclusion of that investigation, the OIG received seven allegations that OJJDP officials engaged in inappropriate conduct related to the underlying program, as referred to then - Attorney General Eric Holder by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel by letters dated September 16, 2014, and January 13, 2015. These allegations were referred by former Attorney General Holder to the OIG, which initiated this audit as well as a review that was conducted by the OIG's Oversight and Review Division. This OIG audit examined two of these allegations, which were: 1. Employees at the OJJDP failed to assure compliance with JJDPA core protections; and 2. Employees at the OJJDP failed to investigate allegations that Wisconsin was falsifying detention data in order to receive federal funding. The audit substantiated the first allegation listed above and identified concerns related to the second allegation. We concluded that the OJJDP could strengthen its grant program compliance monitoring procedures and periodically redistribute an Office of Justice Programs (OJP) policy that requires staff to immediately report suspected programmatic non-compliance to the OJJDP Administrator. We found that the OJJDP did not engage in actions necessary to ensure states' compliance with the four JJDPA core requirements states must meet to receive full funding through the grant program. Specifically, states receiving these OJJDP grants are required to: (1) deinstitutionalize status offenders; (2) separate juveniles from adult inmates; (3) remove juveniles from adult jails; and (4) reduce the disproportionate contact of minority youth with the juvenile justice system, commonly referred as disproportionate minority contact. The OJJDP did not routinely perform compliance monitoring audits required by the JJDPA to help ensure compliance with those requirements. According to OJJDP's former policy, as communicated to us during our OJJDP interviews, each participating state or territory should have received a JJDPA compliance audit at least once every 5 years. However, we found that 20 states or territories received only one audit during a 13-year time period from 2002 through 2014. In October 2015, the OJJDP changed its policy to require a compliance audit every 3 years. We also found that the OJJDP had not developed written policies governing its audit selections. An OJJDP official told us that the agency tried to keep track of when states were due for an audit, but those selection procedures and criteria were not in writing, and the agency did not record the reasons why audit selections were made. We believe that written policies and procedures would provide assurance that audits were selected uniformly, consistent with OJP and Department of Justice policies, and based on factors such as risk or previously identified compliance deficiencies. In April 2015, then-Assistant Attorney General for OJP Karol Mason acknowledged during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee longstanding problems with the OJJDP's compliance monitoring program intended to ensure grantees' compliance with the JJDPA. During the hearing, the thenAssistant Attorney General proposed certain corrective actions to address these problems. We determined that these actions were mostly complete as of January 2017, though we were not able to test their effectiveness within the scope of this audit. While we found no evidence that the OJJDP had examined allegations that Wisconsin submitted fraudulent compliance data, we also found no conclusive evidence that OJJDP managers or supervisors were aware of these allegations prior to the OIG launching its investigation in May 2008. Although a member of the OJJDP’s compliance monitoring staff suspected that Wisconsin had submitted fraudulent data as early as October 2007, the staff member did not formally report these allegations to the OIG until March 2008, and never reported the allegations to OJJDP managers or supervisors. We determined that the same OJJDP staff member who initially suspected Wisconsin of committing fraud told at least one of her co-workers not to share the information with anyone. Although OJP has a policy that requires staff to immediately report allegations of grant misuse or non-compliance, we found that managers or supervisors were not informed because of perceived problems between some OJJDP staff and their managers. Details: Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2017. 39p. Source: Internet Resource: Audit Division 17-31: Accessed September 20, 2017 at: https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2017/a1731.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2017/a1731.pdf Shelf Number: 147417 Keywords: Federal FundingGovernment Audits Government Grants Juvenile Justice Programs |