The department of attorney general (department), crime prevention and justice assistance division (cpjad), grants and planning branch is the designated state administering agency (SAA) responsible for…

The department of attorney general (department), crime prevention and justice assistance division (cpjad), grants and planning branch is the designated state administering agency (SAA) responsible for administering hawaiis edward byrne memorial justice assistance grant (JAG) state formula program. As the SAA, the department is responsible for seeking, applying for, and managing the federal funds, including selecting projects to support, disbursing funds to sub-grantees, and monitoring sub-grantee level activities. The JAG program is the primary provider of federal criminal justice funding to state and local jurisdictions. The department subawards JAG funds through a competitive solicitation method. Each year, the department releases an annual solicitation seeking applications from state and county government agencies. Each application then undergoes a two-tier review, evaluation, and selection process; which include a peer review (scoring of applications by individual peer reviewers) and a branch review (internal review). At the branch review, recommendations for applications to fund are made and sent to the attorney general, who makes final funding decisions.