Feature Story

At Justice, 84th Place Wins

Lower-scoring bids get grants for mentoring, research, prevention.

When it comes time to decide who gets millions of dollars in grants, the head of the federal juvenile justice agency doesn't let the opinions of his experts get in the way. In awarding competitive grants for mentoring, research and delinquency prevention last year, J. Robert Flores passed over dozens of high-scoring bids in order to fund lower-scoring proposals –even though federally appointed experts had ranked some of those proposals 37th, 49th and 84th, according to recently obtained documents.

Those documents show that it is not unusual for the U.S. Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), which Flores heads, to pick lower-scoring bids in competitive grants – a practice that sparked a recent congressional investigation after reports about the practice in one grant program.