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Golf Is the Justice Department's Solution to Gangs?

In another embarrassing moment for the DOJ, ABC News reported that Justice recently awarded a competitive half-million dollar grant for prevention of juvenile delinquency to the World Golf Foundation's First Tee program.

"We need something really attractive to engage the gangs and the street kids. Golf is the hook," said J. Robert Flores of the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Yes, golf is famous for that.

What Flores neglected to mention, however, was that the Justice Department—implementing the Bush administration's state mandate to support "scientifically" based programs—already gave First Tees a middling rating; Justice ranked First Tee 47th on its list of 104 applicants.

Flores, who was appointed by President Bush in 2002 and has distributed about $1.5 billion dollars in federal money in his current position, said that he selects the programs for grants based on the "overall" need, not necessarily on the rating his own department gives the applications. Many other programs that the Justice Department rated highly were denied grants.

So why on earth was the golf program given this fancy grant? It's possible the program's honorary spokesman had something to do with it. —Daniel Luzer

Posted by Mother Jones on 06/12/08 at 12:28 PM | Comments (3) | Email | Print

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