SMART Funding

In Fiscal Year 2013, the SMART Office released solicitations for several of its ongoing grant programs:

FY 2013 Support for Adam Walsh Act Implementation Grant Program
In FY 2013, the SMART Office continues support for implementation of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), Title I of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, through posting of the SMART Office FY 2013 Support for Adam Walsh Act Implementation Grant Program solicitation.

FY 2013 SORNA Tribal Training and Technical Assistance Program
The SMART Office is seeking applications for funding under the SMART FY 2013 SORNA Tribal Training and Technical Assistance Program. This program will focus on providing targeted training and technical assistance to tribal jurisdictions that have opted to become SORNA registration jurisdictions, with an emphasis on hard-to-reach and underserved tribes.

FY 2013 Maintenance and Operation of the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website
The SMART Office is pleased to announce that it is seeking applications for funding under the SMART FY 13 Maintenance and Operation of the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website (NSOPW). This program will focus on providing the public with immediate access to sex offender registration data from public sex offender registries operated by States, territories, the District of Columbia, and certain federally recognized Indian tribes.

Fiscal Year 2012 Funding

In FY 2012, the SMART Office awarded $13.69 million in funding to 56 jurisdictions for the purpose of supporting the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, specifically Subtitle A of Title I, the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). Grantees awarded included 23 States, 1 territory, and 32 tribes; more than $7.18 million went to tribal grantees. These awards provided support and assistance including, but not limited to, developing sex offender registries; assisting with guidance on policies and procedures for registration; enhancing infrastructure to assist implementation of SORNA, such as collection, storage, submission, or analysis of sex offender biometric data (finger and palm prints) and DNA; providing support for coordinated interagency efforts to enhance implementation of SORNA requirements; and developing and implementing training for law enforcement and other criminal justice agency personnel responsible for sex offender registration, notification, and monitoring.

The SMART Office awarded $2.15 million to implementing sites to support its FY 2012 Promoting Evidence Integration in Sex Offender Management: Sex Offender Treatment Intervention and Progress Scale (SOTIPS) training and technical assistance program and evaluation. SOTIPS, developed in 2001 by the State of Vermont, is a 16-item dynamic risk scale to aid clinicians and community supervision officers in identifying and monitoring the supervision and treatment needs of adult sex offenders. In partnership with the National Institute of Justice, the SMART Office sought two jurisdictions interested in implementing SOTIPS in an effort to replicate previous study findings and further evaluate the effectiveness of this model of risk assessment. The SMART Office also awarded funding for a SOTIPS training and technical assistance grantee to provide consultation to the chosen evaluator and implementing sites on developing a data collection database, and to provide instruction on administering and scoring the tool as well as consultation on study design, data collection instrumentation, and database design.

In addition, the SMART Office awarded $871,000 to project sites to support its FY 2012 Promoting Evidence Integration in Sex Offender Management: Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA) and through Training and Technical Assistance competitive solicitations. The COSA model is a supervision strategy involving the use of community volunteers to support an individual sex offender in garnering community resources while holding them accountable to their self-monitoring plan (typically, following completion of legal supervision). Under this funding opportunity, the SMART Office supported two project sites and a technical assistance provider to assist in the development and implementation of the COSA model.

In an effort to promote innovation and best practices in the field of sex offender management, the SMART Office awarded $150,000 for its FY 2012 Fellowship Development Program to focus on enhancing the capacity of the office to provide technical assistance and support to State, local, and tribal jurisdictions on multidisciplinary issues across the various program offices in the Office of Justice Programs and the Office on Violence Against Women. This includes exploring and building a foundation for integrating victim-centered approaches, and identifying experts, research, practices, and programs related to sexual assault and victim services.

The SMART Office continues to support the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website (NSOPW) with grant funding. The office issued a supplemental award of $898,842 in FY 2012 to the Institute for Intergovernmental Research for maintenance and operation of NSOPW.

For information about SMART's funding opportunities, please visit www.smart.gov/funding.htm.