As communities search for new ways to employ wounded, injured, or ill special operations veterans, there's a new federal government program that offers hope.
The program which provides financial support for communities seeking to further increase their effectiveness in the fight against child exploitation is run by the U.S. Department of Justice. Communities will benefit in two key ways:
- Employ wounded veterans paid for via federal grant money
- Help communities fight the ever growing battle to stop child exploitation
The OJJDP (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention) alongside the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Office of Justice Programs (OJP) has released a competitive grant solicitation for the fiscal year of 2020 for Internet Crimes against Children (ICAC) Task Forces.
This program is to help both state and local law enforcement agencies meet the extensive demand for forensic examinations to support both investigation and prosecution of those who entice and exploit children.
In their release, the DOJ, OJP, and OJJDP state a specific need for applications from wounded veterans; specifically, wounded, injured, or ill special operations veterans.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,the unemployment rate for Veterans stood at 3.8 percent in 2018. However, veterans with a service-connected disability had an unemployment rate of 5.2 percent in August
2018, higher than the rate for veterans with no disability (3.5 percent). The same study also indicated that 41% of Gulf War-era veterans had a service-connected disability, compared with 25 percent of all veterans.
Veterans applying would serve as analysts for digital forensic examination of select ICAC task forces, improve task force effectiveness through prevention, interdiction, investigation, and prosecution of internet crimes against children, or reduce forensic examination backlogs and/or increase the number of forensic exams completed by ICAC task forces.
Interested applicants should register with Grants.gov at prior to submitting an application. Applications must be submitted by the March 2020 deadline.
