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With this solicitation, NIJ seeks to build upon its research efforts to understand and aid in accelerating the process of desistance from crime. Applicants should propose research projects that have clear implications for criminal justice policy and practice in the United States. NIJ encourages applicants to submit proposals for innovative approaches to advance the field’s conceptualization of desistance, novel ways of understanding the processes underlying desistance from crime, and integrating desistance into criminal justice practice and policy. NIJ is particularly interested to receive applications for: > Research on the dynamic process of desistance that considers changes in individual offenders’ psychological states, developmental capacities, life events, and social context and how these changes relate to changes in offending over time. > Research to better understand the underlying mechanisms inherent in the process of desistance from crime, in particular whether and how these mechanisms may vary by race/ethnicity, gender, neighborhood context, and the like. > Research on desistance from crime for subgroups of offenders or those who specialize in specific crime types for example burglars, drug offenders or violent offenders. > Research that includes longer term follow-up periods for previously collected data or evaluations of programs that demonstrated promise for reducing offending. > Formative examinations of criminal justice programs or practices that fully incorporate desistance principles into their logic models and theories of change.

As part of this mission, the foundation is seeking applications for its annual Nathan Cummings Foundation Fellowship program, which provides three individuals with up to $150,000 each over eighteen months to pursue a visionary social justice, economic justice, and/ or climate change objective. The foundation is interested in projects that demonstrate exceptional vision and a willingness to disrupt entrenched systems and take risks. All proposed projects must relate to at least one of the major challenges the foundation is dedicated to addressing: inequality and climate change. Fellowship applications should align with at least one of the foundation's four focus areas within these two major issues: Inclusive Clean Economy; Racial and Economic Justice; Corporate and Political Accountability; and Voice, Creativity and Culture.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) seeks an applicant to conduct the collection, analysis, and dissemination activities for the Annual Surveys of Probation and Parole (ASPP) for the collection years 2020 through 2024. The current funding is for the first 3 years of the award; the final 2 years will be funded upon successful completion of 2020-2022 data. The ASPP are two separate data collections, independently referred to as the Annual Probation Survey and Annual Parole Survey. Since 1980, the ASPP have collected aggregate data on the number of persons supervised on probation or parole (i.e., post-custody community supervision), together referred to as the community supervision population. The ASPP obtain aggregated data from administrative records maintained by state probation and/or parole agencies; local agencies (municipal, county, or court); and the federal system. The ASPP are core BJS data collections and are the only national data collections that describe the size, change, movements, outcomes, and characteristics of the community supervision populations at the national, federal, and state levels. Together with data from the National Prisoner Statistics (NPS) Program, which collects counts of persons incarcerated in federal and state prisons, and data from the Annual Survey of Jails, which collects counts of persons held in local jails, ASPP data are used to estimate the total number of persons supervised by the adult correctional systems in the United States. Collectively, these data collections are also critical for tracking the level and change in the correctional populations over time and enhancing the understanding of the flow of offenders through and eventually out of the criminal justice system.

BJA, in a public/private partnership with The Pew Charitable Trusts, launched the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI) in 2010 as a multistaged process in which a jurisdiction reduces unnecessary incarceration, increases the cost-effectiveness of its criminal justice system and reinvests savings into high-performing public safety strategies.  JRI jurisdictions reinvest these cost savings into high-performing initiatives that make communities safer. In addition to reducing prison populations, justice reinvestment encourages states to embrace a culture of greater collaboration, data-driven decisionmaking, and increased use of evidence-based practices. While the full impact of justice reinvestment reforms is not yet known, the policies enacted in JRI states hold great promise to reduce prison populations, achieve substantial cost savings, and avert future growth.  However, many of the states found similar factors driving populations and costs for example, parole and probation revocation rates; sentencing policies and practices that favored incarceration of low-risk offenders over alternatives and that resulted in long lengths of stay; insufficient or inefficient community supervision, services, and support; and parole system processing delays and denials. The policy responses to these issues also overlapped, sharing themes of evidence-based practices and data-driven decisionmaking, including risk and needs assessments; accountability measures such as performance and outcome measure reporting; earned credits to encourage compliance with conditions of community supervision; sentencing changes; swift, certain and fair responses to technical probation and parole violations, mandatory post-incarceration supervision requirements; problem-solving courts; streamlined parole processes and expanded parole eligibility; and re-entry programs to reduce recidivism.

BJA, in a public/private partnership with The Pew Charitable Trusts, launched the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI) in 2010 as a multistaged process in which a jurisdiction reduces unnecessary incarceration, increases the cost-effectiveness of its criminal justice system and reinvests savings into high-performing public safety strategies.  JRI jurisdictions reinvest these cost savings into high-performing initiatives that make communities safer. In addition to reducing prison populations, justice reinvestment encourages states to embrace a culture of greater collaboration, data-driven decisionmaking, and increased use of evidence-based practices. While the full impact of justice reinvestment reforms is not yet known, the policies enacted in JRI states hold great promise to reduce prison populations, achieve substantial cost savings, and avert future growth.  However, many of the states found similar factors driving populations and costs for example, parole and probation revocation rates; sentencing policies and practices that favored incarceration of low-risk offenders over alternatives and that resulted in long lengths of stay; insufficient or inefficient community supervision, services, and support; and parole system processing delays and denials. The policy responses to these issues also overlapped, sharing themes of evidence-based practices and data-driven decisionmaking, including risk and needs assessments; accountability measures such as performance and outcome measure reporting; earned credits to encourage compliance with conditions of community supervision; sentencing changes; swift, certain and fair responses to technical probation and parole violations, mandatory post-incarceration supervision requirements; problem-solving courts; streamlined parole processes and expanded parole eligibility; and re-entry programs to reduce recidivism.

Community Corrections Supervision organizations are increasingly interested in adopting effective supervision interventions as a growing body of research indicates that staff, well trained in evidence-based practices, improve public safety outcomes. More specifically, the community corrections profession is investing in interventions that support behavior change and are moving away from using only control and containment supervision strategies. Research indicates, when community supervision staff employ evidence based approaches that reduce risk and need, coupled with skillful use of innovations such as Core Correctional Practices (i.e., effective reinforcement, cognitive restructuring and professional alliance), they become adept at helping persons under community supervision identify thinking errors, develop problem-solving skills and have the ability to reinforce these new skills.

The purpose of this FOA is to invite: 1) descriptive studies to identify putative juvenile protective factors, 2) experimental studies to test hypotheses about their effects on aging and 3) translational studies to characterize potential beneficial and adverse effects of maintaining or modulating the level of juvenile protective factors in adult life. Juvenile protective factors (JPFs), intrinsic to an immature organism, help to maintain or enhance certain physiological functions across all or some stages of postnatal development (i.e., segment of the life span between birth and sexual maturity), but diminish or disappear as the organism transitions from one maturational stage to the next. The loss or diminution of JPFs after a given stage of postnatal development or at time of sexual maturity may contribute to the onset of deleterious aging changes (e.g., compromised stem cell function and reparative capacity) across adulthood. This FOA is uniquely focused on animal and clinical studies which involve comparisons between juvenile versus adult states or between stages of postnatal development to identify putative JPFs and their effects on aging. 

The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) is soliciting proposals from organizations, groups, or individuals to enter into a cooperative agreement for an 18-month period to begin no later than September 15, 2013. Work under this cooperative agreement will involve the development of a competency-based, blended training curriculum that will provide corrections professionals with the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to teach qualified staff how to train facilitators to use Thinking for a Change(T4C) 3.1. Specifically, this is a call to develop a Training for Trainers (T4T) curriculum. Applicants are encouraged to propose innovative designs to achieve the tasks set forth in this solicitation. The curriculum must contain components of both distance and face-to-face learning, with an emphasis on choosing the most effective and efficient delivery option available to achieve learning objectives. The curriculum will be housed and operated through NIC's online learning management system (LMS), the NIC Learning Center. All components of the curriculum must be compatible with the Learning Center, and a successful applicant will have a team member with the knowledge and skill to work with NIC staff on this aspect of the course.

The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) is soliciting proposals from organizations, groups, or individuals to enter into a cooperative agreement for a 15-month period to begin no later than August 15, 2013. Work under this cooperative agreement will be an extension of the NIC's Evidence-Based Decision Making (EBDM) in Local Criminal Justice Systems initiative. It will require the coordination of jurisdictions receiving technical assistance under EBDM and review of work produced under other cooperative agreements that resulted in deliverables under EBDM.Work under this cooperative agreement will involve all activities necessary to plan for the successful implementation of EBDM in a statewide structure. Specifically, the awardee will plan a comprehensive structure for implementation, including development of a technical assistance (TA) plan and the tools required to build capacity to implement EBDM within local jurisdictions and state-level criminal justice planning committees. The awardee will also revise "A Framework for Evidence-Based Decision Making in Local Criminal Justice Systems" to include needed content changes and additions to support statewide implementation; develop activities and tools needed to select a state that, through an identified process, is determined to have the greatest potential for successful planning and implementation of EBDM at the statewide level; provide TA to current EBDM sites and their states' criminal justice coordinating counsels and executive administration in preparation for statewide planning for EBDM implementation. This project will be a collaborative venture with the NIC Community Services Division.

NIJ, in collaboration with other Federal agencies, is interested in funding a cooperative agreement to conduct a rigorous, multi-year demonstration project to prevent abuse, neglect, and/or financial exploitation among community-residing elderly individuals identified to be at risk. Ultimately, the demonstration project will include development and implementation of the intervention, and, pending funding, a rigorous scientific evaluation of its effectiveness. Successful proposals will develop an intervention that: 1) specifies a theory of change; 2) builds upon evidence-based violence prevention interventions in related areas; 3) identifies a rationale and strategy for selecting participants; and 4) is designed to be replicated, scaled up, and independently evaluated if the demonstration project indicates effectiveness in preventing elder abuse. Applicants may develop and test interventions to prevent either a single form or multiple forms of elder mistreatment. Initial funding under this solicitation will cover an 18-month planning phase. Upon successful completion of the planning phase, additional funding may become available to support the implementation of an 18-month pilot study.

OJJDP seeks to award funding for assessing the effectiveness and/or cost efficiency of juvenile justice system reforms defined as systemic policy or practice changes within a locality or state that impact one or more segments of the juvenile justice system.

The Strategies for Policing Innovation (SPI) National Training and Technical Assistance (TTA) Program provides resources and opportunities to enable police agencies to identify and define their most pressing crime problems and institute lasting operational and organizational changes that foster reliance on and effective use of evidence-based practices, data, and technology.

Founded in 1922, PEN America champions the freedom to write, recognizes the power of the word to transform the world, and works to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. To that end, the organization is accepting applications for the PEN America Writing for Justice Fellowship, which seeks to harness the power of writers and writing in being witness to the societal consequences of mass incarceration by capturing and sharing the stories of incarcerated individuals, their families, communities, and the wider impact of the criminal justice system. Proposed projects may include but are not limited to fictional stories, works of literary or long-form journalism, theatrical scripts, memoirs, poetry collections, or multimedia projects. The proposed project should engage issues of reform, fuel public debate, crystallize concepts of reform, and facilitate the possibility of societal change.

Nigeria has sought to tackle corruption through traditional legal, law enforcement, and governance-focused interventions. The United States seeks to support the Government of Nigeria (GON) to institutionalize a culture of accountability at the federal, state, and local levels of government through support for prevention and enforcement activities. The purpose of this program is to develop strategic national, state, and local level anti-corruption programming to complement traditional anti-corruption efforts led by the GON and donors. The project will work at the national, state, and local level, in each geopolitical zone, and in coordination with relevant civil society stakeholders thereby creating networks of change and collective action throughout Nigeria. Particular attention should be paid to anti-corruption efforts related to security and justice sectors.

BJA seeks applications for a Technical Assistance Provider (“TA Provider”) to assist in the establishment and facilitation of national-level technical assistance to approximately 20 to 25 demonstration sites in furtherance of the Sentinel Events Initiative (SEI). SEI is an effort led by the National Institute of Justiceâ€Â" the US Department of Justice’s research, development, and evaluation agencyâ€Â"to explore whether an all-stakeholder, forward-looking, non-blaming review of unanticipated events that signal an underlying system weakness in criminal justice can be used to understand areas of system risk and weaknesses, reduce the occurrence of these outcomes, increase safety, and augment the criminal justice system’s ability to fulfill its mission. Drawing heavily from similar successful efforts in the fields of medicine and transportation, this scientific inquiry aims to determine a) whether sentinel event reviews (SERs) can be implemented and routinized in a criminal justice context, b) whether these reviews can inform policy and practice improvements to mitigate the risk of analogous errors or weaknesses in the future, c) whether changes in policy and practice maximize the criminal justice system’s ability to meet its mission of reducing crime, protecting the public, and advancing the administration of justice, and d) whether these reviews are sustainable over time.

Since 1983, the AccessLex Institute has evolved to meet the ever-changing challenges and needs of the law students and institutions it serves by conducting and commissioning research that illuminates the latest data and evidence on the critical issues in legal education today. To that end, the institute is currently accepting applications for its Diversity Pipeline Research Grant Program from organizations working to enhance access to legal education for students from diverse backgrounds. With the ultimate goal of increasing knowledge that buttresses methods for increasing the enrollment and success of law students, the program supports current or proposed programs and initiatives aimed at helping college students and/or graduates from historically underrepresented racial and socioeconomic groups successfully matriculate into law school and the legal profession.

The Public Welfare Foundation supports efforts to advance justice and opportunity for people in need. The Foundation looks for strategic points where its funds can make a significant difference and improve lives through policy and system reform that results in transformative change. We focus on three program areas: Criminal Justice, Youth Justice and Workers' Rights.

The Innovative Prosecution Program seeks to encourage exploration of new solutions to public safety concerns, as well as internal operations and organizational structure, while employing research partners at the problem definition stage through assessment of strategies and solutions. Some creative solutions developed by prosecutors around the country include changing how their organizations prioritize cases, identifying the most violent repeat offenders, using data to develop zone/geographic prosecution, using crime analysis tools through strategies like gun stat to track reduce gun violence, developing policies to prosecute witness intimidation cases, working jointly with Parole and Probation on violations of probation, enhancing the prosecutors role in investigations of homicide cases and cyber-crime strategies to improve public safety.

In response to the growing national interest in pretrial reform and demand for risk assessment to aid courts in making release or detention decisions, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF) plans to dramatically expand access to its Public Safety Assessment (PSA) and broaden the level of research on its use and effectiveness. Since the PSA was launched in 2013, more than 600 jurisdictions have contacted LJAF about possibly using it. This intense level of interest reflects the nationwide momentum favoring evidence-based pretrial decisions. The PSA was developed to address the inequity in the system that causes the poor to be jailed simply because they're unable to make bail. The PSA is currently in use in about 40 cities, counties and states. "The call for change is clear and now is the time to act," said Laura Arnold, co-chair of the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. "Meanwhile, we must develop a deeper understanding of the effectiveness and impact of risk assessment."

To support a safer campus environment for all of Ohio's students, Governor John R. Kasich and the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE) encourage immediate and thoughtful action to help prevent the occurrence of terrible crimes, and ultimately support every college and university's aim to provide an excellent and safe learning environment for students. With the goal of ending and preventing sexual violence on Ohio's campuses, the Chancellor of the Ohio Department of Higher Education is issuing this RFP for the development of a comprehensive, outcomes-based program to train coaches, staff, and faculty working with campus athletic programs. The program supports the following recommendations from the Changing Campus Culture report: · Empower staff, faculty, campus law enforcement, and students to prevent and respond to sexual violence through evidence-based training. · Communicate a culture of shared respect and responsibility. · Develop a comprehensive response policy. · Adopt a survivor-centered response. The Chancellor is seeking proposals from qualified vendor(s) and will review proposed model support services to implement comprehensive prevention and response training model for coaches, staff, and faculty working with campus athletic programs. The award of this RFP will result in a contract with the Chancellor.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), Executive Office of the President, is seeking applications from a non-profit entity that is described in Section 501(c)(3) with expert knowledge and extensive experience in community mobilizing using the Seven Strategies for Community Change. Applicants must have served as an essential partner in assisting the Drug-Free Communities (DFC) Support Program with technical assistance to community coalitions in their substance use prevention efforts and have experience training youth to be substance abuse prevention leaders.