Philadelphia – February 13, 2020 — State Senator Vincent Hughes (D-Philadelphia/Montgomery) joined Chief Defender Keir Bradford-Grey to announce the Defender Association of Philadelphia was the recipient of a $250,000 grant award.
The Defender Association of Philadelphia represents approximately 70 percent of all people arrested in Philadelphia. Attorneys provided through the Defender Association of Philadelphia represent clients that include both children and adults in adult and juvenile sate courts, at civil and criminal mental health hearings, and serve as child advocates.
The funding comes from the state’s Department of Education Job Training and Workforce Development grant and will be used to fund the association’s technological improvements in the form of mobile office kits, laptops, scanners and the replacement of 15-year-old network switches to continue to provide high-quality representation and educational programming.
“If we truly want to balance the scales of justice in the information age, public defender’s must have access to the ever-changing technology to provide state-of-the art representation for their clients,” Sen. Hughes said. “I am hopeful this grant will have a tremendous impact in our community and improve outcomes for their client and their families.”
Bradford-Grey said the state funding will provide attorneys with ‘real-time’ remote access to case materials, accurate digital records, decrease maintenance costs and provide technical assistance to community-led neighborhood defense hubs.
“We at the Defender Association are hopeful that this grant is the beginning of necessary and consistent funding streams to provide resources that help us defend the 60,000 Philadelphians that walk through our doors every year,” Bradford- Grey said.
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