The Danville City Council will consider a budget appropriation ordinance at its Tuesday meeting for a grant from the Department of Juvenile Justice, which will provide funding for programming at the city’s juvenile detention center.
The grant totals just under $87,000, and the city will provide a local match of almost $40,000. The total cost to operate the programs is about $127,000.
If approved, the funding will go toward programming around electronic monitoring and outreach detention, online intervention and pro-social skills.
The Virginia Juvenile Community Crime Control Act requires localities to develop and submit plans outlining how they will serve juvenile offenders. Danville’s plan was revised and approved for the 2025 fiscal year.
Danville has received funding from the act since the General Assembly enacted it in 1995. The funding allows the W.W. Moore Jr. Detention Home to operate its electronic monitoring and outreach detention programs, as well as other services.
The juvenile detention center serves the cities of Danville and Martinsville, as well as Halifax, Henry, Mecklenburg, Patrick and Pittsylvania counties.
“Without these programs and services, it is possible many of these juveniles would be placed in secure detention or in out-of-home placements, resulting in greater cost to the locality,” according to a staff report in the meeting agenda.
These programs increase the level of supervision of juvenile offenders through face-to-face contact, home visitation, school and employment contact and monitoring with electronic equipment, the report says.
About 60 juveniles are expected to be supervised via electronic monitoring, and six more are expected to be supervised through the outreach detention program.
Electronic monitoring involves in-home monitoring through an ankle bracelet. Outreach detention involves at-home monitoring through daily in-person visits from an outreach worker.
Danville also plans to offer online substance abuse education, anger management, shoplifting/larceny reduction courses and pro-social skills personal development programming. These programs are expected to serve 24 juveniles.
The city has drastically reduced its crime rate in the last decade, in part through programming for juvenile offenders.
City staff recommends that the council approve the ordinance that will anticipate revenues from this grant and appropriate the local match amount.
The full agenda packet for the Dec. 3 meeting, which will be held at City Hall at 7 p.m., can be found here.
There will also be a public hearing at this meeting for a variety of items, including a proposed multifamily and assisted living housing development.
