Department of Justice: Community Oriented Policing Services – Community Policing Development

Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies that support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as violent crime, nonviolent crime, and fear of crime. Community Policing Development (CPD) funds are used to develop the capacity of law enforcement to implement community policing strategies by providing guidance on promising practices through the development and testing of innovative strategies; building knowledge about effective practices and outcomes; and supporting new, creative approaches to preventing crime and promoting safe communities.

The CPD program has been established to fund specific projects related to the following topic areas:

Topic 1. Incorporating community policing into contemporary broken windows theory applications. This theory is a way of linking instances of social disorder and incivility with serious crime. The goal is to develop innovative crime-reduction approaches and use contemporary strategies that are supported by broken windows theory in a way consistent with the community policing philosophy to maximize crime reduction, citizen safety, and citizen perceptions of the police. Applicants should propose projects that pilot innovative practice, develop new training, or create toolkits for implementing promising practices that advance the effective implementation of broken windows concepts to policing.

Topic 2. Supporting first amendment rights: The community policing approach. The goal is to develop resources to help law enforcement agencies improve their ability to prepare for and respond to events in which individuals exercise their First Amendment rights.

Topic 3. Partnerships to address labor trafficking. The goal is to increase law enforcement knowledge of how to identify victims of labor trafficking and the networks that traffic; encourage investigation of abuses of the J-1 visa program; and promote collaboration with the business community, other local stakeholders, prosecutors, and state and federal entities.

Topic 4. Online law enforcement training: The goal is to develop innovative, self-paced, and interactive online training course(s) for law enforcement professionals that advance public safety through the application of community policing. Projects should focus on developing fully functioning, interactive online course(s) that are compatible with the COPS Office Training Portal (https://copstrainingportal.org/).

Topic 5. Supporting first-line supervisors: First-line supervisors are responsible for assigning job roles and responsibilities, conveying information and strategic objectives from police executives to line staff, putting departmental policy into practice, and evaluating officer performance. The goal of this topic is to enhance the knowledge and skills of officers and agencies to ensure the highest level of first-line supervision. This project may address a range of topics that are critical to first-line supervision, including understanding the importance of officer wellness issues, managing performance, supervisors’ role in implementing community policing, and their role in turning departmental policies into practice, as well as organizational issues such as promising practices in supervisor selection methods, training (including leadership and management training), duties and responsibilities, and evaluation of and by first-line supervisors.

Topic 6. Field-initiated law enforcement microgrants, including: a) peer support for officer safety and wellness; b) human trafficking; c) hate crimes; d) recruitment and hiring; e) incident-specific after-action reviews; and f) child and youth engagement. State, local, or tribal law enforcement agencies may propose demonstration or pilot projects to be implemented in their agency that offer creative ideas to advance crime fighting, community engagement, problem solving, or organizational changes to support community policing in one of the following areas:

• Peer support for officer safety and wellness: This area will support applications from law enforcement agencies that are interested in developing demonstration or pilot projects to establish peer support and mentoring programs focusing on mental health, well-being, and wellness.
• Human trafficking: Under this area, law enforcement agencies should develop or implement innovative and collaborative projects to improve the prevention and identification of victims of human trafficking as well as hold traffickers and offenders accountable for these crimes.
• Hate crimes: The attorney general highlighted the importance of combating hate crimes by creating, as part of that overall committee, a hate crimes subcommittee. As part of the work, the hate crimes subcommittee is committed to improving reporting, investigation, and prosecution of hate crimes. This topic area will support law enforcement agencies to work on this priority and develop or implement a project to enhance the response and investigation of bias and hate crimes.
• Recruitment and hiring: This topic area seeks demonstration or pilot project with creative methods for recruitment and hiring that include quantitative measures of success. A variety of objectives can be proposed to achieve the project goal(s) and may involve agency personnel and resources as well as community partners.
• Incident-specific after-action reviews: This topic area seeks to provide support to agencies interested in conducting incident-specific after-action reviews for their agencies to help them understand the lessons from an incident response. As part of their proposal, agencies should provide background on the incident, propose independent partner(s) that will perform the comprehensive review, and describe the process that they will engage in to conduct the comprehensive review.
• Child and youth engagement: Funding will be provided to law enforcement agencies seeking to develop or enhance programs supporting youth-police engagement. Funding should be used to promote positive youth and police interactions in ways that have positive outcomes for youth victimization, safety, and offending as well as in improving relationships between youth and law enforcement.

Topic 7. Open topic area: There is a plethora of innovative community policing strategies to reduce crime utilized in the United States. This topic area offers opportunities for the development, documentation, and distribution of information on these innovative policing strategies that can help agencies replicate the groundbreaking policies, programs, training, and initiatives that their fellow agencies are implementing. The goal of this topic area is to develop and exchange practice-based innovation in community policing. Applicants can propose to develop training, implement demonstration projects, create promising practice guidebooks and toolkits, deliver topic-specific technical assistance, or produce multimedia resources that capture innovative stories and experiences.

Topic 8. Tribal training and technical assistance. This topic seeks to support tribal law enforcement agencies through training and technical assistance efforts around community policing topics. Applicants may submit proposals that utilize a comprehensive approach to technical assistance, providing guidance and strategies to tribal agencies in need of developing or enhancing their community policing practices. Projects will support the development and delivery of training and technical assistance to tribal law enforcement agencies and non-tribal public safety partners. Proposals should focus on community policing strategies including, but not limited to: problem solving, community partnerships, organizational transformation, crime prevention, and community-based strategies. Proposals should include a variety of methods for delivering the required technical assistance, including partnership outreach, regional conferences and workshops, forums, online assistance and training, onsite training, and the development of publications and other deliverables. Proposals must focus on the following topic: Native American recruitment for tribal law enforcement.

Topic 9. Invitational applications: This topic area is invitational only.

Amount: A total of $10,000,000 is available. Funding ranges are specific to topic area, as follows:

• Topic 1: One award will be made that ranges up to $500,000
• Topic 2: One award will be made that ranges up to $500,000
• Topic 3: One award will be made that ranges up to $500,000
• Topic 4: Up to four awards will be made that range up to $250,000 each
• Topic 5: One award will be made that ranges up to $300,000
• Topic 6: Up 18 awards will be made that range up to $100,000 each
• Topic 7: Up seven awards will be made that range up to $300,000 each
• Topic 8: One award will be made that ranges up to $300,000
• Topic 9: Amount not specified

The COPS Office expects to make the project period for all cooperative agreements 24 months. The project period for all microgrant topic area awards is 12 months.

Eligibility: Public governmental agencies, for-profit (commercial) organizations, nonprofit organizations, institutions of higher education, community groups, and faith-based organizations. Applicants are strongly encouraged to submit an application that shows partnerships with key organizations including institutions of higher education and nonprofit organizations in order to build strong working relationships.

Link: https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=304093

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