OARS funding Criminal Justice

NIJ seeks applications for funding investigator-initiated, interdisciplinary research and evaluation projects related to the administration of justice in three priority areas: (1) eyewitness evidence; (2) front-end intervention strategies (diversion and deflection, pretrial notification protocols and court appearance compliance, and justice system-led strategies aimed at young-adult offenders); and (3) enhancing investigation and prosecution (body worn cameras, and jury nullification). Strong applications that address the administration of justice in the U.S. but fall outside these areas may also be considered.

The purpose of this project is to collect, maintain, and make accessible the nation’s primary source of detailed information on juvenile court case processing of delinquency and status offense cases, and to generate annual estimates of case processing. The Archive also provides juvenile justice researchers and policymakers with the ability to access automated juvenile court data sets, to study a wide range of national and subnational juvenile justice issues, to monitor trends, and to identify emerging issues.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Justice Programs (OJP), Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) is seeking applications for the FY 2018 National Initiatives: Preventing Violence Against Law Enforcement Officers and Ensuring Officer Resilience and Survivability (VALOR) Initiative. This national initiative furthers the Department mission by improving the criminal justice system; enhancing law enforcement safety, wellness, resilience, and survivability; and providing support to efforts including training and technical assistance programs strategically targeted to address law enforcement safety and wellness needs.

The Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) is responsible for the development, supervision, coordination and implementation of international narcotics control assistance activities and international criminal justice issues for the Department of State. The Colombia program builds on efforts begun under Plan Colombia, with a shift towards supporting the Colombian government's institutional reforms and strengthening the criminal justice system. The INL section in Embassy Bogota manages the justice sector program funded through the International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) account and destined for Colombia.

The intended outcome of this program is to advance efforts to improve and develop state drug residue prevention programs. It is necessary to provide assistance to state drug residue programs that need a stronger foundation to promote the prevention of illegal drug residues in animal derived foods through educational outreach and training. This program is intended to ensure drug residue prevention programs are developed to protect consumer exposure to drug residues in the edible products of food animals and support activities related to drug residue prevention. In addition, these awards will assist state agencies to better direct their programs to reduce the outcomes of illegal drug residues in animal derived foods. This cooperative agreement program (CAP) will focus on outreach, education and training. In addition, grantees will focus on performing targeted on-site assessments related to drug residue violations and best practice visits to industry and individuals to communicate proper drug use and promote effective management practices for drug residue prevention.

BJA seeks applications for the Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Program. This program furthers the Departments mission by leading efforts to enhance the capacity of local and tribal communities to effectively target and address significant and violent crime issues through collaborative cross-sector approaches that are linked with broader neighborhood development goals. Eligible applicants are limited to states, institutions of higher education (including tribal institutions of higher education), units of local government, nonprofit organizations (including tribal nonprofit organizations), and federally recognized Indian tribal governments (as determined by the Secretary of the Interior) as fiscal agent. The goal of BCJI is to reduce crime, increase trust, and improve community safety as part of a comprehensive strategy to advance neighborhood revitalization. Through a broad cross-sector partnership team, including neighborhood residents, BCJI grantees target neighborhoods with hot spots of violent and serious crime and employ data-driven, cross-sector strategies to accomplish this goal.

The Smart Supervision Program seeks to improve the capacity and effectiveness of community supervision agencies to increase probation and parole success rates and reduce the number of crimes committed by those under probation and parole supervision, which would in turn reduce admissions to prisons and jails and save taxpayer dollars. Funds will be awarded in two categories. In Category 1, state and local agencies will be selected to improve supervision using evidence-based supervision strategies or to innovate new strategies to improve outcomes for supervisees. For example, agencies may test supervision strategies with offenders at high risk of committing or being victimized by violence and may shift supervision strategies from time focused to goal focused and from mass supervision to focus on individualized supervision. In Category 2, a TTA provider will work with three sites to develop a model for law enforcement and prosecutors to work with probation departments with regard to high risk, violent offenders. The TTA provider will select three sites in concert with BJA and pass through funds to support their work.

With this solicitation, NIJ seeks applications for investigator-initiated research and evaluation projects to improve understanding, prevention and deterrence of firearms violence in general and public mass shooting incidents in particular. This solicitation aims to strengthen the knowledge base and improve public safety by producing findings with practical implications. This solicitation is focused specifically on producing research related to intentional, interpersonal firearms violence.

The awards pursuant to this Notice of Funding Opportunity are contingent upon the availability of funds. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) is soliciting investigator-initiated research that will help expand and advance our understanding about what works to prevent overdose from prescription and illicit opioids by developing and piloting, or rigorously evaluating novel primary or secondary prevention interventions. The intent of this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is to: (1) build the scientific base for the primary or secondary prevention of opioid overdose, and (2) encourage collaboration of scientists from a spectrum of disciplines including public health, epidemiology, law enforcement, social work, economics, and criminal justice to perform research that can identify ways to prevent opioid overdose more effectively. Interventions can be strategies, programs, or policies. Ultimately, this research is intended to improve state and local health departments’ ability to implement and improve interventions focused on preventing opioid-related deaths. Researchers are expected to develop and pilot, or rigorously evaluate novel primary or secondary prevention interventions that address prescription or illicit opioid overdose. Primary prevention approaches are expected to aim to prevent opioid misuse, abuse, and overdose before it occurs. Secondary prevention approaches are expected to focus on the more immediate responses to opioid overdose, such as emergency department services and linkage to treatment immediately following a nonfatal overdose.

This project aims to support recent reforms of the Ministry of Interior to develop an accountable and trustworthy police force responsive to citizen needs by supporting an additional mechanism to enhance the recruitment, selection, training and placement of officers/agents assigned to the Inspector General's office. Specifically, this project will provide training for officers/agents who are currently assigned to work as investigators in the Office of the Inspector General.

NIJ is interested to fund a single evaluator that will have the capabilities to assess the effectiveness of a few promising technologies that can enhance safety within K-12 schools. Evaluations should consider the school environment and use cases as well as the kinds of data that might be collected or used as a result of the technology intervention. Applicants are encouraged to explore technologies that have worked for use cases in other ecosystems that may translate well to the K-12 school environment.

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.

NIJ seeks proposals for research and evaluation projects to identify the combination of attributes specific to the individual law enforcement officer that causes them to make the decisions governing their actions during encounters with the public. Specifically, NIJ is interested in identifying those combinations of attributes tending to lead to successful encounter outcomes; as well as those tending to lead to unsuccessful outcomes. NIJ is also interested in understanding how the outcomes associated with a specific combination of attributes may differ based on the type of encounter; including understanding how the importance of specific attributes may vary based on the type of encounter.

The United States Government (USG), as represented by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA), Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation (CMM), invites applications for funding from qualified entities to carry out activities that mitigate conflict and promote reconciliation by bringing together individuals of different ethnic, religious, or political backgrounds in the following countries: Burkina Faso, Colombia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Honduras, Jamaica, Kenya, Kosovo, Macedonia, Mali, Niger, and Senegal. PLEASE REFER TO THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT, INCLUDING ALL ANNEXES, FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS FUNDING OPPORTUNITY. The full announcement is available for download on the Related Documents tab.

This program seeks to improve the quality and timeliness of forensic science and medical examiner services, including services provided by laboratories operated by States and units of local government. Among other things, funds may be used to eliminate a backlog in the analysis of forensic evidence and to train and employ forensic laboratory personnel, as needed, to eliminate such a backlog. The Coverdell Act requires that 15 percent of program funds be awarded competitively. These competitive funds may be awarded to SAAs or dispersed directly to units of local government based on the merits of the respective applications. This solicitation will fund competitive awards only.

The objective of the Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI) program is to develop, deploy and integrate security solutions that benefit the scientific community by ensuring the integrity, resilience and reliability of the end-to-end scientific workflow. CICI seeks three categories of projects: 1. Secure Scientific Cyberinfrastructure: These awards seek to secure the scientific workflow by encouraging novel and trustworthy architectural and design approaches, models and frameworks for the creation of a holistic, integrated security environment that spans the entire scientific CI ecosystem; 2. Collaborative Security Response Center: This single award targets the development of a community resource to provide security monitoring, analysis, expertise, and resources Research & Education (R&E) cyberinfrastructure staff, regardless of physical location or organization; and 3. Research Data Protection: These awards provide solutions that both ensure the provenance of research data and reduce the complexity of protecting research data sets regardless of funding source.

NIJ has a longstanding history of collaborating with, and supporting the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) on research, evaluation, and programmatic projects. Over the years, the shared priorities of OVC and NIJ have resulted in a number of collective projects, workshops, and research. In 2013, OVC identified a need for the development of research to build a body of evidence-based knowledge on victims and victimization across several areas of victim services.

NIJ is seeking applications for rigorous program evaluation of specific services for victims of crime including housing, legal assistance, and technology-based services. This solicitation is for a planning phase not to exceed a 24 month period of performance.

The Course Hero-Woodrow Wilson Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching will support rising stars in the academy who love teaching, demonstrate excellence as educators, and are making their mark as exceptional researchers, poised to shape their fields. Designed for young scholars working towards tenure, the Course Hero-WW Fellowship is a "genius grant" that will emphasize the balance between scholarly excellence and commitment to teaching practice that draws on new approaches to pedagogy, creating a new level of engagement for students in and beyond the classroom. In short, Fellows will be emerging heroes in their fields, on a clear trajectory to become great college educators. In its inaugural year, the Course Hero-WW Fellowship will identify five outstanding junior faculty members. Fellows will receive a one-year grant of $40,000-approximately $30,000 to support the engagement of a student assistant and the balance to be used for research and travel support. Exceptional candidates teach in ways that build student confidence and mastery of a subject; encourage critical thinking; explore foundational concepts through the lens of broader themes and global events; promote the power of learning communities beyond the classroom; leverage technology to complement the classroom experience; consider and serve different learning styles; prepare students for lifelong learning; and can serve as replicable teaching models for other educators. Selection takes place in June 2018. The five Fellows will be invited to attend the Course Hero Education Summit in July 2018, where their Fellowships will be announced.

The Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Consulate General in Chennai (PAS Chennai) is soliciting proposals for a project entitled, "Countering Disinformation in South India: A Regional Media Literacy Initiative." In the South Indian context, regional language media (TV, radio, print, and digital media) serve as the primary source of information for the 170 million citizens of South India (Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, the Union State of Puducherry, and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands). This project focuses on regional language media professionals due to both their substantive reach and the fact that existing English-language trainings and resources on countering misinformation and disinformation may not be accessible to them.