Governor Glenn Youngkin announced awarded grants totaling $37.5M to support local criminal justice programs in Virginia.
The grants were awarded by the Criminal Justice Services Board. It includes $6.8 million for local school resource officers (SRO) and school security officers (SSO), which will support the 86 SRO positions and the 15 SSO positions for schools across Virginia.
Funds will go to support local victim-witness programs, gun violence prevention programs, juvenile delinquency prevention programming and hospital-based violence prevention programming among others.
Governor Youngkin has now proposed an additional $22.5M in both FY 23 and 24 to fund additional SRO and SSO positions in Virginia’s schools.
“The grants awarded today will provide funding for localities that fund positions and programs that help to make our schools and communities safe as well as ensuring our youth and crime victims receive the support and services they need,” said Governor Glenn Youngkin. “These awards also reflect my commitment to make school safety my number one priority and I look forward to making available the additional funding I have proposed in the upcoming budget.”
The criminal justice programs that were awarded funding by the Criminal Justice Services Board include; School Resource Officer Program, School Security Officer Program, Victim Witness Program, Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Program, Peer Supported Critical Incident Stress management Program, Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Program, Gun Violence Grant Program, Project Safe Neighborhoods program, Child Advocacy Centers program, Hospital-Based Violence Intervention program, and Hate Crimes program.
