Weekly News Brief

Justice Department Announces $3 Million in Grants to Oakland, Calif., to Fight Crime?Phelan Wyrick, Senior Policy Advisor to Laurie O. Robinson, OJP?s Assistant Attorney General, announced more than $3 million in grants to the city of Oakland, Calif., during remarks on Tuesday, August 24. The two-day meeting on gangs, which was chaired by Oakland Mayor Ronald V. Dellums and Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts, was moderated by Jack Calhoun, California Cities Gang Prevention Network. Melinda Haag, United States Attorney, Northern District of California, and a number of local, state, federal and community partners committed to addressing violent crime also participated. For a list of OJP Fiscal Year 2010 grant awards please visit: https://ojp.gov/funding/10grantawards.htm.

BJS Releases Sexual Victimization Survey?OJP?s Bureau of Justice Statistics today released the Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, 2008-09. To meet the requirements of the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, BJS surveyed more than 81,500 inmates held in 167 state and federal prisons, 286 local jails, and 10 special confinement facilities between October 2008 and December 2009. About 4.4 percent prison inmates and 3.1 percent of jail inmates reported sexual victimization by another inmate or facility staff. https://bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=2202

Best Practices for Fire Fighters and Law Enforcement Focus on Vehicle/Roadway Safety?According to the United States Fire Administration (USFA), approximately 25 percent of firefighters are killed in the line of duty while responding or returning from incidents, with the majority of fatalities from vehicle crashes. OJP?s National Institute of Justice supported the development, with the USFA and the International Association of Fire Fighters, of the recently released Best Practices for Emergency Vehicle and Roadway Operations Safety. http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/media/press/2010releases/082410.shtm http://www.iaff.org/hs/EVSP/guides.html

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