34 U.S.C. § 12251 — Authority to make grants

(a) General authority: The Attorney General may make competitive grants to states to run family unity demonstration projects under this part. These projects let eligible offenders live in community correctional facilities with their children. (b) Preferences: When awarding these grants, the Attorney General gives preference to a state whose application (required by section 12252) promises several things if it gets the grant. The state's corrections agency and its health and human services agency will both participate substantially and cooperate closely on every part of the project. Boards made up of community members — including residents, local businesses, corrections officials, former prisoners, child development professionals, educators, and maternal and child health professionals — will be set up to advise the state on running the project. The state will have a policy of placing prisoners, whenever possible, in the correctional facility closest to their family's home. Unless the Attorney General decides a longer timeline fits, the state will start the project within 180 days of getting the grant and spend all the grant money within one year. The state has the ability to keep running the community correctional facility after the funding period ends. And, unless the Attorney General decides a different selection process is better, the state will: give a prisoner written notice of the project within 30 days of the state first getting the grant, or within 30 days of the prisoner being sentenced to no more than 7 years (whichever is later); accept a prisoner's application to join the project at any time it's running, as long as more than 180 days remain on their sentence; review applications in the order they arrive; and approve or deny each application within 50 days of reviewing it. Finally, for selecting eligible offenders, the state must have authorized its courts to sentence an eligible offender directly to a community correctional facility, as long as the court confirms the offender would otherwise have served time in prison. (c) Selection of grantees: The Attorney General awards these grants competitively, using criteria set by rule, and taking the preferences in subsection (b) into account.