Funding cuts could affect local gang programs

Apparently the Bush Administration’s much- touted law-and-order focus doesn’t extend to actually paying for anything. Like, for example, juvenile justice and delinquency prevention programs. In his latest budget request for Fiscal Year 2007, Bush proposed to cut such federal programs 43 percent, to $176 million from $308.7 million.
According to Rory Carpenter, the juvenile justice coordinator for the Charlottesville/Albemarle Commission on Children and Families, similar cuts were threatened last year as well, but were shot down by Congress. He expects a similar outcome this year—with some funding getting cut, but not nearly as much as Bush has requested.
Should the cuts occur, Carpenter says that they could potentially affect funding in Charlottesville and Albemarle. Each year the CCF receives about $20,000 from the Juvenile Accountability Block Grant to fund programs on gang prevention and restorative justice. Bush’s budget proposes eliminating this grant entirely. In addition, throughout the years, Carpenter estimates that the CCF has received about $500,000 from the Title V Local Delinquency Prevention Grant program. Bush’s budget proposes cutting this funding to $32 million, down from $64.4 million in Fiscal Year 2006.
All in all, however, Carpenter is optimistic about the programs’ chances of survival.
“There’s a good chance that, through the lobbying process, we can get some of these dollars put back in,” he says.—Nell Boeschenstein