Fort Belknap - Support for Adam Walsh Act Implementation Grant Program

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 (AWA) (Pub. L. 109-248, 42 U.S.C. § 16901, et seq) authorizes the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART) to administer sex offender management grants. These grants assist state, local and tribal jurisdictions in developing and/or enhancing sex offender registration and notification programs that support substantial implementation of Title I of the AWA, known as the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). SORNA was enacted to protect the public from convicted sex offenders and offenders against children by establishing a comprehensive national system for the registration of those offenders.

The Fort Belknap Indian Community (Ft. Belknap) is working towards meeting the requirements of SORNA which requires sex offenders to register and maintain current registration at all times. With grant funds, Ft. Belknap will (1) assess whether the jurisdiction has sufficiently addressed each SORNA requirement and continue to examine the jurisdiction's implementation program as a whole to determine if it promotes the overall objectives of SORNA; (2) manage and maintain the existing registry work, coordinate registry services of monitoring, apprehending, tracking, and registering all sex offenders within the tribal jurisdiction, and enforce the new tribal sex offender registration code, policies, and procedures; and (3) provide local, regional, and national training for sex offender registry officers, traditional law enforcement, working group members, and other criminal justice agency personnel on the dangers of sex offenders as well as on operation of the live scan system by the software provider.

ca/ncf