The Department of Justice is committed to advancing work that promotes civil rights, increases access to justice, supports crime victims, protects the public from crime and evolving threats, and builds trust between law enforcement and the community.
BJA's Justice Reinvestment Initiative: Improving Justice System Performance provides funding to develop and implement innovative and research-based responses that address a range of criminal justice system problems. It employs the Justice Reinvestment approach to criminal justice, which recognizes that every justice agency has a role to play in preventing crime, ensuring a fair and efficient justice system, facilitating appropriate sentencing and treatment, and protecting community security.
Deadline: June 28, 2021
Category 1: Improving Court Processing and Efficient Docket Management Identify and address the challenges that prevent efficient, timely, and effective court case processing. Applicants should review their court system data, policies, and procedures to identify opportunities to improve docket management, thus reducing unnecessary costs and delays that negatively impact the justice system and public safety.
Category 2: Improving and Implementing Pretrial Systems Identify and address the challenges faced by jurisdictions in making pretrial release decisions that are timely, risk-informed, and fair, and assure a defendant’s court appearance while protecting public safety. Applicants should review their pretrial data, policies, and procedures to identify opportunities for planning, implementation, and enhancements to better determine a defendant’s level of risk to public safety and reduce the likelihood of their failure to appear in court if released pending trial, as well as opportunities to create or enhance pretrial release assessment services.
Category 3: Innovations in Information Sharing to Coordinate Crime Reduction Develop and build data-sharing tools such as arrest alert systems that assist in addressing expensive deficiencies in sites’ criminal justice systems. Projects must seek to break down informationsharing silos and challenge current practices that may impede a community’s crime reduction strategies.
Category 4: Innovative Approaches to Improve the Efficacy of State Justice Systems Identify innovative approaches to address persistent or emerging crime and public safety problems, or the impediments/barriers to address them. Applicants should review the entire criminal justice system spectrum — from event to reentry — to identify innovative opportunities for improvement that align with holding offenders accountable, addressing the opioid epidemic, supporting law enforcement and correctional institutions, and supporting victims of crime.
Category 5: Training and Technical Assistance for Site-based JRI Projects The selected provider will work closely with the sites funded by BJA, to include applicants for FY 2021 funding (up to 5) as well as previous year cohorts (approximately 24 grantees), to help them achieve their project goals and deliverables. The provider will provide ongoing, intensive coaching to develop a detailed implementation plan, assist each site in executing it, and develop sustainability plans before the end of the sites’ award period. The provider may also be asked by BJA to provide training to the field, prioritizing jurisdictions engaged in Justice Reinvestment, as well as participate in group interactions at conferences or workshops, peer-to-peer consultations, distance learning, and/or web-based assistance.
Categories 1-4: State governments
Category 5: Public and state controlled institutions of higher education Nonprofits, other than institutions of higher education Private institutions of higher education
