To: Board of Supervisors
From: Diana Becton, District Attorney
Report Title: Budget Amendment for New Revenue from Federal Grant
☒Recommendation of the County Administrator ☐ Recommendation of Board Committee
RECOMMENDATIONS:
APPROVE Budget Amendment No. BDA-23-00306 authorizing revenue appropriations from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance, in the amount of $359,274 to the District Attorney's Office to fund a contracted Crime Analyst.
FISCAL IMPACT:
Approval of this request will appropriate federal funding awarded to the department for crime analyst services. No County match is required.
BACKGROUND:
The Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office received the FY 2022 Northern District of California Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) grant from the U.S. Department of Justice (US DOJ), Office of Justice Programs (OJP), Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). This request is to appropriate the grant funding in an amount not to exceed $359,274 to fund a contracted Crime Analyst to work in the District Attorney’s Office.
Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) is designed to create and foster safer communities through a sustained reduction in violent crime. The program's effectiveness depends upon the ongoing coordination, cooperation, and partnerships of local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies and community organizations working together with the communities they serve - engaged in a unified approach coordinated by the U.S. Attorney (USA) in all 94 districts.
The addition of a Crime Analyst to support the Community Violence Reduction and Gang Unit (CVRU) within the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office is a critical component of the Northern District of California’s PSN Strategy and will drive intelligence-informed state and federal violent crime prosecutions. Such a program is an explicit action item in the PSN Pillar for focused and strategic enforcement, and the United States Attorney's Office’s (USAO) ability to collaborate with the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office would directly facilitate this goal.
The addition the Crime Analyst will assist the attorneys and investigators in CVRU in evaluating crimes and linking them by identifying the prolific offenders, using firearms-related intelligence such as ballistics associations and tracing information, and uncovering linked crimes to build the most impactful cases that target violence drivers and disrupt the flow of illicit firearms.
CONSEQUENCE OF NEGATIVE ACTION:
The District Attorney's Office budget will not reflect this approved funding opportunity and would prevent the department from hiring a Crime Analyst to drive intelligence-informed violent crime prosecutions.