The City Council’s Public Safety Committee and Police Chief Timothy Jackson are pictured discussing the recently received STRIVE grant that will help the department’s domestic violence unit. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

The Jamestown Police Department has been awarded state funds as a part of the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services’s Statewide Targeted Reductions in Intimate Partner Violence grant, through the Chautauqua County STRIVE partnership.

Members of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee discussed the grant recently. The Chautauqua County partnership received a total of $847,225, with the Jamestown Police Department receiving $309,815 because it is a partner agency.

This grant award is for the period of March 1, 2025, to March 31, 2026, and will allow for the department to have funding for overtime domestic violence details, a crime analyst position, outreach materials, canine supplies, a domestic violence case management system, as well as travel and training.

“The District Attorney’s office is handling the personnel,” Police Chief Timothy Jackson said during the committee meeting. “They’re going to do the hiring for that. There’s a lot to that grant. It’s going to take a lot of coordination amongst offices, the sheriff’s office, us, the DA, possibly Dunkirk.”

Councilman Jeff Russell, R-At Large and chair of the Public Safety Committee, confirmed that this is a new grant and that it is the first time the police department has received funds from it. He added that previous grants for the domestic violence unit have not been that large.

“It’s the largest grant to my knowledge that we’ve ever gotten for domestic violence,” Jackson said.

There will be a STRIVE coordinator, along with the STRIVE analyst, that works between all of the agencies involved in this grant money. No new officers will be hired with the grant, but part of the grant will be paying for the coordinator and analyst. The department will retain their current domestic violence office.

The grant was mentioned again during the city council’s work session, where Russell noted that it was a huge grant for the department, and Jackson credited the department’s grant writer with doing an “outstanding job” with the grant.