National Community Courts Initiative

Link

https://bja.ojp.gov/funding/opportunities/o-bja-2024-172116

Additional Links

Notice of Funding Opportunity (Grants.gov)
Solicitation Overview

Deadline

Application Deadline: Jun 24, 2024

Purpose

Provides funding to state, local, and tribal governments to establish and enhance community courts in their jurisdictions. Aims to build trust with law enforcement and enhance public safety by promoting the community court model. Community courts are neighborhood-focused court programs that combine the resources of the community and the justice system to address underlying issues that lead to criminal behavior, including substance use and mental health conditions. Works to connect people committing less serious crimes to judicially supervised substance use disorder (SUD) treatment, alternative sanctions, and community-based support services.

This program has 2 funding categories:

Category 1: Planning and Implementation - grants for jurisdictions that are planning and/or ready to establish a community court to address individuals experiencing substance use and/or co-occurring disorders and other issues using evidence-based principles and practices

Category 2: Enhancement - grants for jurisdictions with an existing community court that has been fully operational for at least 1 year as of March 2, 2023. Funds may be used to to scale up the court program's capacity; enhance court operations to serve a specific population such as the homeless population; expand or enhance court services; improve the quality and/or intensity of services based on needs assessments; or complete a program evaluation

Program objectives include:

Establish or enhance court-based intervention programs that prioritize and expedite the provision of treatment and recovery services to individuals who are frequent users of justice, health, and other services and who commit misdemeanor offenses
Increase and enhance alternatives to incarceration by tailoring sentences to each defendant to improve community safety, enhance confidence in justice, and reduce recidivism
Build and maximize the capacity of jurisdictions to ensure all participants are identified, assessed, and referred to services
Enhance the use of community services by participants in the community court docket, including case management, housing assistance, and service coordination
Develop and maintain partnerships with service providers to enhance the provision of treatment and recovery support services
Support the development, enhancement, and translation of research and knowledge of researcher-practitioner partnerships
Collect lessons learned and other useful examples from grantees and disseminate the information via publications, media platforms, and conference presentations

Amount of Funding

Estimated number of awards:

5 awards in Category 1
5 awards in Category 2

Award ceiling: $900,000 per year
Project period: 48 months
Estimated total program funding: $9,000,000

Who Can Apply

Eligible applicants include:

States and territories
City, township, county, or special district governments
Other units of local government, such as towns, boroughs, parishes, villages, or general purpose political subdivisions of a state
Federally recognized Native American tribal governments
Public housing authorities and Native American housing authorities
Public or private entities acting on behalf of a single treatment court through an agreement with a state, city, township, county, or tribal government

Priority consideration is given to applicants that meet the following criteria:

Promote racial equity and support the removal of barriers to access and opportunity for communities that have been historically underserved, marginalized, adversely affected by inequality, and disproportionately impacted by crime, violence, and victimization
Expand access to services to rural and or tribal communities
Partner with research experts to facilitate evaluation and assessment activities, including but not limited to needs evaluation, identifying the target population, ensuring equity and inclusion in programming, tracking program implementation, and mapping critical resources in the community

Geographic Coverage

What This Program Funds

Capacity Building • New Program • Operating Costs and Staffing

Application Process

Application instructions, requirements, and other information about the online application process can be found in the funding announcement.

Applications must be submitted electronically through a 2-step process:

Step 1: Applicants will submit an SF-424 and an SF-LLL in grants.gov by the June 24, 2024 deadline.
Step 2: Applicants will submit the full application, including attachments, in the JustGrants grants management system by the July 1, 2024 deadline.

Applicant webinar
(Registration required) May 16, 2024
2:00 - 3:00 p.m. Eastern

Contact

For questions on submitting in grants.gov:
800-518-4726
support@grants.gov

For questions on submitting in JustGrants:
833-872-5175
JustGrants.Support@usdoj.gov

For programmatic and technical questions:
Office of Justice Programs (OJP) Response Center
800-851-3420
TTY at 301-240-6310
grants@ncjrs.gov

Topics This Program Addresses

Community Planning and Coalition Building • Community Supervision • Crime Reduction • Justice System • Mental Health • Social Services • Substance Use Disorder • Treatment