Byrne JAG Penalty Bills

Over the years, Congress has enacted several pieces of legislation for which the penalty for noncompliance is a reduction in a portion of a state or territory’s Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne JAG) award.

Sex Offender Registration and Notification (SORNA)

The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) is Title I of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 (Public Law 109-248). It established a mandatory 10 percent penalty on states and territories not substantially implementing SORNA. the first penalties were levied on the FY12 Byrne JAG awards.

Fewer than half of all states have substantially implemented SORNA's requirements. Learn more about the requirements of SORNA and view the SMART Office’s state map and summary of each state and territory’s implementation status.

Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA)

The Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (Public Law 108-79) required a five percent penalty against any federal grant program that states would “otherwise receive for prison purposes," a term left undefined in statute. DOJ interpreted this to mean some of the grant programs eligible to be used for prison construction, administration or programming, which DOJ identified as the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant program, the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act’s Title II formula grants and the Office on Violence Against Women’s STOP grants. Because the original statute did not anticipate the system of audits established in the rule-making, states could not accomplish the tasks necessary to come into compliance before the penalties were set to take effect. Therefore, nearly every state was penalized five percent of the three grant programs in FY14, FY15, and FY16. The Justice for All Reauthorization Act (JFAA), which passed Congress and was signed into law in December 2016, made several changes to PREA to fix this problem. In brief, the JFAA exempted the STOP grants from future penalties, suspended the penalties on most states for three years, holding the penalty funds in abeyance for that time, and ended the assurance option by a date certain.

National Instant Criminal Background Check System

The NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 (Public Law 110-180) governs administration of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). States are required to digitize and upload all criminal records into the national database in stages according to a timetable established by the Act. The law authorized, but did not require, the Attorney General to levy a penalty on a state’s Byrne JAG grant for failure to meet the reporting requirements. In 2018, Congress passed the Fix NICS Act to help improve reporting, offering, among other things, incentives to state and tribal governments for establishing required implementation plans.

Death in Custody Reporting

More recently, the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013 (Public Law 113-242) authorized, but did not require, the Attorney General to levy a penalty against Byrne JAG for failure to report on the deaths of arrestees or inmates in state or local custody. Attorneys general across Administrations have partnered with states and local law enforcement agencies to improve reporting, and the Biden Administration funded a training and technical assistance provider to provide direct support in states. To date, DOJ has not activated the penalty for incomplete reporting.