Hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal funding intended for Peoria’s now defunct Cure Violence program might be redirected into a different ongoing program aimed at reducing crime.
The Peoria County Board of Health considered options for the use of $564,000 in funding from the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s Byrne Discretionary Grants Program during their Monday meeting. The money was meant to facilitate the implementation and operation of a Peoria branch of the Cure Violence Global program. Issues including finding suitable community partners and the investigation of alleged improper use of funding ultimately resulted in the board terminating the partnership.
Board president Mike Kennedy says the three options presented by health department staff were an assessment program for high-risk youth, a family intervention model for area hospitals, or contributing to the already in-progress development of a juvenile specialty court.
Kennedy says the board told health department staff to prioritize the new juvenile court.
“This is one time money,” he said. “So we want to do something, to get involved with an existing initiative, to also have something that would be sustainable when the funds have been totally expensed.”
The development of a juvenile treatment court began more than a year ago, pushed forward through a partnership between various district court, Peoria County and City of Peoria entities. The proposed court functions similarly to Peoria’s drug and mental health courts. After a guilty plea, with some exceptions for violent crimes, juveniles can enter the program.
“It allows the court to have frequent contact with those individuals,” Kennedy said. “To work not only with the individuals, but with their families in helping them make changes in their thinking, their behavior, their lifestyle, so they can be more productive.”
In order to repurpose the funding, Kennedy says the health department will have to flesh out a concept and return to the Bureau of Justice Assistance for approval.
“[The juvenile treatment court] has a lot of detail, they already documented as to what it is they had in mind before the possibility of all these funds existed,” Kennedy said. “Now, it’s if the federal department that we’re going to be negotiating with agrees that that’s a good concept.”
In preparing to choose a new direction for the funding, Kennedy says the health department hosted stakeholder meetings that including organizations like the Peoria County State’s Attorney’s Office, Peoria County Probation, the Peoria Police Department, and OSF HealthCare.
Many of the stakeholders listed on a slide from Monday night’s presentation are also involved in the creation of the juvenile treatment court.
Kennedy says he was surprised by the shift in focus from adults to the youths.
“It was just the attitude of the people involved that said ‘you put your money where you think you can get the most out of it,’” he said. “It doesn’t mean that you disregard other people. There will be other kinds of interventions that you’ll use with them.”
There isn’t a timeline yet on how long it will take for health department staff to propose their new direction and hear back from the federal agencies.
An external audit of the use of Cure Violence funding commissioned by the Board of Health is still ongoing.
