Alabama’s DCANP Budget Cuts by District

Alabama's Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention (DCANP) has been hosting a series of Sustainability Meetings with community-based program leaders around the state. When the FY 2012 budget takes effect Oct. 1, the DCANP will be forced to cut 74 of the 175 community-based programs the department funds. Read the full story. The slides below were compiled by the DCANP and outline affected programs by district:

District 1

District 2

District 3

District 4

District 5

District 6

District 7

Opening slide to DCANP Sustainability Meetings

One Agency’s Budget Struggles Typical of Nation

Alabama’s only agency designated to prevent child abuse and neglect, among the many juvenile justice departments around the nation grappling with a smaller budget, will serve nearly half the number of kids in 2012 as they did in 2011. The Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention (DCANP) is preparing to cut 74 community-based programs around the state when the new budget takes effect October 1. The cuts bring the total number of programs to just 101 for FY 2012, compared to 227 funded in FY 2005. The reduction in services represents roughly 14,000 kids that will no longer have access to community-based prevention programs.

“I’m really concerned with the burden of the system as a whole,” says Kelley Parris-Barnes, director of the DCANP. “When you take the community-level programs out you don’t have the capacity in the state to do it.”

The DCANP doesn’t deliver services directly.

Coalition Responds to Cuts in Juvenile Justice Funding

The Obama administration’s FY 2012 budget proposes to significantly cut funding for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and make the remaining funds available to individual states through a competitive process. This proposal would eliminate OJJCP’s existing grants program, the only dedicated federal source to the states for juvenile justice system improvements. The National Coalition for Juvenile Justice and its partners has responded to this proposal with a letter to the president.

Why Juvenile Justice Could be Big Loser In Obama Budget

The Obama administration is proposing deep cuts in juvenile justice programs while boosting funding for policing and prisons, according to the D.C.-based Justice Policy Institute. These priorities, says the Institute (JPI), go counter to Obama administration public statements urging a reduction in the historically high prison population of some 2.4 million. Additionally, says the JPI, the FY 2012 Budget proposes to spend money on failed polices and has missed an opportunity to fund “smarter investments in proven programs.”

[Click here to look through the proposed FY 2012 Budget]

An Institute factsheet reports the budget would slash some $50 million from juvenile programs, including prevention. These programs are designed to help many of the nearly 100,000 kids currently in detention and correctional facilities across the nation. At the same time, the budget proposes an increase of $116 million from FY 2010 for facilities.