Deadline: 28 April 2020
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Justice Programs (OJP), Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) is seeking applications for funding state, local, and tribal community supervision agencies to develop and test new or enhanced applications of the swift, certain, and fair principles of intervention to reduce recidivism and improve outcomes for people under community supervision.
The purpose of this program is to provide state, local, and tribal community supervision agencies with information, resources, and training and technical assistance (TTA) to improve responses to client behavior in accordance with the principles of swiftness, certainty, and fairness; improve supervision outcomes; prevent recidivism; and reduce crime in their jurisdictions.
The SCF principles of intervention are as follows:
- Swiftness—responding to behavior promptly so that people under supervision connect the response to their behavior.
- Certainty—ensuring that sanctions and rewards are applied with consistency and predictability.
- Fairness—making sanctions proportionate to negative behavior and rewards appropriate to positive behavior.
Objectives and Deliverables
In order to establish, expand, or improve SCF strategies so they can be sustained after the award period, BJA will make up to four awards to pursue the following objectives:
- Develop and implement supervision strategies based on the SCF principles, including responding to both positive and negative client behaviors.
- Reduce crime committed by, and improve outcomes for, people under supervision.
- Identify a target population for the SCF initiative using a collaborative, data-driven process that responds to local circumstances.
- Assemble an SCF team that has the authority to implement the required elements of the project, including decisionmaking authority concerning the terms of supervision and the capacity to assess and effectively intervene with the target population (e.g., issue and serve warrants quickly, drug testing capacity, and access to jail beds, treatment, and other services, as needed).
- Evaluate the efficacy of the SCF strategies to reduce recidivism and improve outcomes for people under community supervision.
The required deliverables are:
- An action plan, which will be a product of collaboration among the agency and the technical assistance provider.
- A final report that documents the process, intervention, outcomes, and lessons learned.
Specific Priority Areas
In FY 2020, and in addition to executing any OJP policy prioritization that may be applicable, priority consideration will be given to applications as follows:
Propose an SCF initiative to reduce gun violence among people under community supervision who are identified together with local and/or state law enforcement. The proposals must include a description of how these individuals will be identified and demonstrate access to and use of data and law enforcement input.
OJP Policy Priority Areas
In FY 2020, and in addition to executing any program-specific prioritization that may be applicable, OJP will give priority consideration to applications as follows:
- Applications from federally recognized tribes
- Applications that address specific challenges that rural communities face
- Applications that demonstrate that the individuals who are intended to benefit from the requested grant reside in high-poverty areas or persistent-poverty counties
- Applications that offer enhancements to public safety in economically distressed communities (Qualified Opportunity Zones)
- Where the application is from a State or local government entity that operates at least one correctional facility (as defined at 34 U.S.C. 10251(a)(7)), applications that go to enhancing criminal justice and public safety by indicating agreement to comply with award conditions related to cooperation with federal law enforcement, as set forth in Appendix A
Funding Information
- Estimated maximum dollar amount for each award: $750,000
- Total amount anticipated to be awarded under this solicitation:$3,000,000
- Period of performance duration: 48 months
- Period of performance start date: October 1, 2020
Eligibility Criteria
- The following entities are eligible to apply:
- States
- Units of local government
- Federally recognized Indian tribal governments (as determined by the Secretary of the Interior)
- In this solicitation, “state” means any state of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
- All recipients and subrecipients (including any for-profit organization) must forgo any profit or management fee.
For more information, visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=324944