by David Ball
Staff Writer
For the past eight years, Johnnie Fisher has stared into the face of Jacksonville’s violent crime crisis only to see pairs of young eyes staring back, longing for help.
Fisher is the house manager for Inside/Outside Inc., one of the only programs in the country that provides a residential home for juveniles who have committed offenses and were tried and convicted as adults.
A small staff watches over the six young men living there, helping them obtain educational or vocational training, medical services and employment. Most importantly, they keep the boys away from the poverty, violence and lifestyles that could pull them back into crime.
“They can’t go back into foster care, they won’t be accepted at any of the local homeless shelters because they are juveniles,” said Fisher. “If it wasn’t for Inside/Outside, they’d be out in the street.”
In total, the program has helped more than 45 young men transition back into society following incarceration, and Fisher said, thanks to the program, very few have returned.
“There is a lot of talk now about crime prevention in Jacksonville, and this is truly a crime prevention program,” she said. “At least 90 percent of the young men that have come through this program have not gone on to the prison system, and that is a great statistic.”
But that statistic might end next year, along with the program itself.
Inside/Outside and a handful of other local crime prevention programs receive a lion’s share of funding through the federal Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG). In January, Congress slashed JAG appropriations by 67 percent, or $345 million.
It’s not yet known how deeply the cuts will affect Jacksonville, but the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which disperses the state’s allocations to the various counties and municipalities, stated it very clearly in a recent letter to the City. “This will significantly reduce your JAG county allocation for state fiscal year 2008-2009.”
“In our distribution in Florida we use crime statistics and population to give every county some allocation of funds,” said FDLE administrator Clayton Wilder. “The larger metropolitan areas get larger amounts. Duval County is one of the biggest, definitely in our top five.”
Last year, Congress appropriated $520 million through the JAG program to states and local governments to support a broad range of activities to prevent and control crime and to improve the criminal justice system. Commonly funded programs include ones in law enforcement, prosecution and courts, prevention and education, corrections, drug treatment and enforcement, planning, evaluation, and technology improvement and crime victim and witness programs.
Jacksonville has received a portion of the funds since 1998, said City Media Relations Officer Kristen Beach. For the current 2007-08 fiscal year, $650,000 was received and funded five programs:
• $190,409 for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Area Discharge Enhancement Program, which helps local providers in the fields of mental health, substance abuse, employment and housing serve the needs of offenders prior to and following their release from detention.
• $126,500 for Inside/Outside Inc.
• $118,440 for Intimate Violence Enhanced Service Team (INVEST), a program that seeks to reduce domestic violence homicides in Duval County through identification of and intervention in potentially lethal domestic violence cases.
• $104,659 for Juvenile Justice and Offender-based Initiatives, which conducts research and engages community members in the goal of reducing juvenile delinquency.
• $45,000 for Communities in Schools’ Jailed Juvenile Program, which provides counseling, education, career and life-skills training and support to juvenile inmates as they transition back into the community.
• $65,000 for administrative services, which provides $64,249 in annual salary for one accountant to administer the JAG grants and $3,001 to support operating costs of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Offender-based Initiatives.
Beach said no one will know exactly how much Florida, and specifically Jacksonville, will receive next year until the federal funding letter is released in late March.
“The 2008 federal budget saw cuts across the board, and JAG was one of those that fell victim,” said Beach. “It’s not just a Jacksonville thing. These cuts are impacting other municipalities and other non-profits doing great work.”
Beach said the City is working with its federal lobbyists to help restore the funding for the 2009-10 year. But for the coming year, Beach said the City’s goal is to provide a “stop-gap remedy,” possibly using budget reserves, until more funding is available.
“We’ll know how much we’re getting in March, and then the money will come through around June,” she said. “By then, we’ll know what kind of situation we’re looking at. Our budget is due to the City Council by July 1. By then, we’ll be working to prepare for all of those programs’ funding.”
Fisher said nearly all but a few thousand dollars of her operating funding comes through the JAG grant and is used to pay her $36,000 salary, staff at $8.50 an hour and the associated costs of running a home.
“We are required to have a million dollars worth of insurance, and that’s 20 percent of our budget right there,” she said. “Keeping up our van kills us, the price of gas kills us. When it (JAG funding) reduces, we could possibly have to close our doors.”
Fisher said she and her board are strategizing new fund-raising opportunities, particularly better outreach to the corporate and business community.
“We would love to get some more local funding,” she said. “But people do not like to give to a program that isn’t warm and fuzzy. That’s the bottom line.”
Leon Baxton is chief operating officer of Communities in Schools. The $45,000 he receives for the Jailed Juvenile Program allows a case manager to identify juveniles in detention facilities and provide counseling before their release and then housing and employment following their release.
“It covers the case manager’s salary and mileage,” said Baxton. “It also helps pay for the kids’ supplies, a suit when they leave for job interviews and a health kit. We try to equip them with everything necessary to be successful when they leave.”
As for having 67 percent of his funding cut, Baxton knows exactly where that will leave the program.
“We’ll be gone,” he said.