(a) Authority

The Attorney General may make grants to eligible organizations to provide for the establishment of a National Criminal Justice and Mental Health Training and Technical Assistance Center.

(b) Eligible organization

Terms Used In 34 USC 10652

  • Attorney General: means the Attorney General of the United States or his designee. See 34 USC 10251
  • criminal justice: means activities pertaining to crime prevention, control, or reduction, or the enforcement of the criminal law, including, but not limited to, police efforts to prevent, control, or reduce crime or to apprehend criminals, including juveniles, activities of courts having criminal jurisdiction, and related agencies (including but not limited to prosecutorial and defender services, juvenile delinquency agencies and pretrial service or release agencies), activities of corrections, probation, or parole authorities and related agencies assisting in the rehabilitation, supervision, and care of criminal offenders, and programs relating to the prevention, control, or reduction of narcotic addiction and juvenile delinquency. See 34 USC 10251
  • de-escalation: means taking action or communicating verbally or non-verbally during a potential force encounter in an attempt to stabilize the situation and reduce the immediacy of the threat so that more time, options, and resources can be called upon to resolve the situation without the use of force or with a reduction in the force necessary. See 34 USC 10251
  • evaluation: means the administration and conduct of studies and analyses to determine the impact and value of a project or program in accomplishing the statutory objectives of this chapter. See 34 USC 10251
  • Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
  • Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
  • Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
  • individual: shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development. See 1 USC 8
  • Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
  • officer: includes any person authorized by law to perform the duties of the office. See 1 USC 1
  • Probation: A sentencing alternative to imprisonment in which the court releases convicted defendants under supervision as long as certain conditions are observed.
  • State: means any State of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands: Provided, That for the purposes of section 10156(a) of this title, American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands shall be considered as one state 1 and that for these purposes 67 per centum of the amounts allocated shall be allocated to American Samoa, and 33 per centum to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. See 34 USC 10251

For purposes of subsection (a), the term “eligible organization” means a national nonprofit organization that provides technical assistance and training to, and has special expertise and broad, national-level experience in, mental health, crisis intervention, criminal justice systems, law enforcement, translating evidence into practice, training, and research, and education and support of people with mental illness and the families of such individuals.

(c) Use of funds

Any organization that receives a grant under subsection (a) shall collaborate with other grant recipients to establish and operate a National Criminal Justice and Mental Health Training and Technical Assistance Center to—

(1) provide law enforcement officer training regarding mental health and working with individuals with mental illnesses, with an emphasis on de-escalation of encounters between law enforcement officers and those with mental disorders or in crisis, which shall include support the development of in-person and technical information exchanges between systems and the individuals working in those systems in support of the concepts identified in the training;

(2) provide education, training, and technical assistance for States, Indian tribes, territories, units of local government, service providers, nonprofit organizations, probation or parole officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, emergency response providers, and corrections institutions to advance practice and knowledge relating to mental health crisis and approaches to mental health and criminal justice across systems;

(3) provide training and best practices to mental health providers and criminal justice agencies relating to diversion initiatives, jail and prison strategies, reentry of individuals with mental illnesses into the community, and dispatch protocols and triage capabilities, including the establishment of learning sites;

(4) develop suicide prevention and crisis intervention training and technical assistance for criminal justice agencies;

(5) develop a receiving center system and pilot strategy that provides, for a jurisdiction, a single point of entry into the mental health and substance abuse system for assessments and appropriate placement of individuals experiencing a crisis;

(6) collect data and best practices in mental health and criminal health and criminal justice initiatives and policies from grantees under this subchapter, other recipients of grants under this section, Federal, State, and local agencies involved in the provision of mental health services, and nongovernmental organizations involved in the provision of mental health services;

(7) develop and disseminate to mental health providers and criminal justice agencies evaluation tools, mechanisms, and measures to better assess and document performance measures and outcomes relating to the provision of mental health services;

(8) disseminate information to States, units of local government, criminal justice agencies, law enforcement agencies, and other relevant entities about best practices, policy standards, and research findings relating to the provision of mental health services; and

(9) provide education and support to individuals with mental illness involved with, or at risk of involvement with, the criminal justice system, including the families of such individuals.

(d) Accountability

Grants awarded under this section shall be subject to the following accountability provisions:

(1) Audit requirement

(A) Definition

In this paragraph, the term “unresolved audit finding” means a finding in the final audit report of the Inspector General of the Department of Justice under subparagraph (C) that the audited grantee has used grant funds for an unauthorized expenditure or otherwise unallowable cost that is not closed or resolved within 1 year after the date on which the final audit report is issued.

(B) Audits

Beginning in the first fiscal year beginning after December 13, 2016, and in each fiscal year thereafter, the Inspector General of the Department of Justice shall conduct audits of grantees under this section to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse of funds by grantees. The Inspector General shall determine the appropriate number of grantees to be audited each year.

(C) Final audit report

The Inspector General of the Department of Justice shall submit to the Attorney General a final report on each audit conducted under subparagraph (B).

(D) Mandatory exclusion

Grantees under this section about which there is an unresolved audit finding shall not be eligible to receive a grant under this section during the 2 fiscal years beginning after the end of the 1-year period described in subparagraph (A).

(E) Priority

In making grants under this section, the Attorney General shall give priority to applicants that did not have an unresolved audit finding during the 3 fiscal years before submitting an application for a grant under this section.

(F) Reimbursement

If an entity receives a grant under this section during the 2-fiscal-year period during which the entity is prohibited from receiving grants under subparagraph (D), the Attorney General shall—

(i) deposit an amount equal to the amount of the grant that was improperly awarded to the grantee into the General Fund of the Treasury; and

(ii) seek to recoup the costs of the repayment under clause (i) from the grantee that was erroneously awarded grant funds.

(2) Nonprofit agency requirements

(A) Definition

For purposes of this paragraph and the grant program under this section, the term “nonprofit agency” means an organization that is described in section 501(c)(3) of title 26 and is exempt from taxation under section 501(a) of title 26.

(B) Prohibition

The Attorney General may not award a grant under this section to a nonprofit agency that holds money in an offshore account for the purpose of avoiding paying the tax described in section 511(a) of title 26.

(C) Disclosure

Each nonprofit agency that is awarded a grant under this section and uses the procedures prescribed in regulations to create a rebuttable presumption of reasonableness for the compensation of its officers, directors, trustees, and key employees, shall disclose to the Attorney General, in the application for the grant, the process for determining such compensation, including the independent persons involved in reviewing and approving such compensation, the comparability data used, and contemporaneous substantiation of the deliberation and decision. Upon request, the Attorney General shall make the information disclosed under this subparagraph available for public inspection.

(3) Conference expenditures

(A) Limitation

No amounts made available to the Department of Justice under this section may be used by the Attorney General, or by any individual or entity awarded discretionary funds through a cooperative agreement under this section, to host or support any expenditure for conferences that uses more than $20,000 in funds made available by the Department of Justice, unless the head of the relevant agency or department, provides prior written authorization that the funds may be expended to host the conference.

(B) Written approval

Written approval under subparagraph (A) shall include a written estimate of all costs associated with the conference, including the cost of all food, beverages, audio-visual equipment, honoraria for speakers, and entertainment.

(C) Report

The Deputy Attorney General shall submit an annual report to the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives on all conference expenditures approved under this paragraph.

(4) Annual certification

Beginning in the first fiscal year beginning after December 13, 2016, the Attorney General shall submit to the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives an annual certification—

(A) indicating whether—

(i) all final audit reports issued by the Office of the Inspector General under paragraph (1) have been completed and reviewed by the appropriate Assistant Attorney General or Director;

(ii) all mandatory exclusions required under paragraph (1)(D) have been issued; and

(iii) any reimbursements required under paragraph (1)(F) have been made; and


(B) that includes a list of any grantees excluded under paragraph (1)(D) from the previous year.

(5) Preventing duplicative grants

(A) In general

Before the Attorney General awards a grant to an applicant under this section, the Attorney General shall compare potential grant awards with other grants awarded under this Act to determine if duplicate grant awards are awarded for the same purpose.

(B) Report

If the Attorney General awards duplicate grants to the same applicant for the same purpose the Attorney General shall submit to the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives a report that includes—

(i) a list of all duplicate grants awarded, including the total dollar amount of any duplicate grants awarded; and

(ii) the reason the Attorney General awarded the duplicate grants.

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