Under the edward byrne memorial justice assistance grant (JAG) program FY 2024 local solicitation, the county of kern is eligible to receive $218,318 to support the criminal justice system

The county of kern through the district attorney proposes the continuance of the JAG target gang vertical prosecution project. The target gang strategy means that habitual gangsters are prosecuted for any crime, not just gang related crimes, with an emphasis on increased jail and incarceration time. The vertical prosecution strategy emphasizes one attorney will handle the case from beginning to end. Vertical prosecution has shown to improve conviction rates, reduce victim trauma, and provide more consistent and appropriate sentencing. The kern county district attorneys office will partner closely with the kern county sheriffs department to analyze and identify crime patterns and arrest perpetrators of violent gang activity and prosecute the offenders to the fullest extent of the law. Due to the dramatic increase in gang related residential burglaries, retail thefts, and marijuana dispensary violence, the gang unit will be aggressively identifying and prosecuting these type crimes that are plaguing our community. As has been the district attorneys experience with vertical prosecution, the concentration of resources to specific offenders enhances the ability to remove perpetrators for a longer period of time and establishes a deterrent model that serves to reduce the incidence of these crimes. The goals of the program are simple: (1) agency coordination, (2) participate in crime analysis, (3) identify crime patterns and emerging trends, (4) vertical prosecution, (5) resist pretrial release, (6) reduce plea-bargaining, (7) increase sentence length and (8) training.