US DOJ: $12M To Advance Community Policing Efforts

U.S. Department of Justice's Community Oriented Policing Services

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch announced nearly $12 million in funding through the Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services as part of President Obama's commitment to engage with law enforcement and other members of the community to implement key recommendations from the 21st Century Policing Task Force report. The grant awards will build on the Justice Department's community policing efforts including the development of innovative community policing strategies, officer training and technical assistance, applied research and the implementation of best practices for community engagement.

“These grants include funding for a range of exciting endeavors and opportunities, including national-level projects by major law enforcement organizations, emerging-issues forums designed to obtain information from the field, targeted technical assistance for communities at risk, long-term strategic efforts that identify potential issues and offer solutions and innovative and experimental work in community policing,” said Attorney General Lynch. “These new investments build on the work we are already doing to ensure officers can do their jobs fairly, faithfully and effectively, and that residents can be protected, respected and heard.”

“Many of the grants announced today advance recommendations contained in the report of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing,” said COPS Office Director Ronald Davis. “These grants provide substantial assistance to law enforcement agencies in building trust between their agencies and the communities they serve.”

The COPS Office has awarded nearly $1.5 million to five organizations to fund projects that offer innovative ideas on how to advance the task force recommendations. Projects funded in this area include the development of a toolkit and best practices for school resource officers; a study to identify strategies for engagement and recruitment to increase diversity in law enforcement, especially among college students; a national initiative to develop, test and implement national models for enhancing law enforcement agencies' crime reduction measures; the identification of promising practices in social media engagement; and the development of new media to promote effective community policing and police-community collaboration.

To further advance the task force recommendations, the COPS Office has awarded nearly $675,000 in additional funds to develop engagement opportunities between law enforcement and youth, identify best practices for engaging the community in the mutual responsibility of public safety, exploration of the circumstances and causalities behind documented line-of-duty injuries, and promotion of officer safety and wellness.

The COPS Office has awarded more than $610,000 through its Microgrant Initiative awards to support practitioner-driven innovations to inform the national practice of community policing by funding law enforcement agencies directly to implement their proposed projects.

The COPS Office has also awarded $1 million to two organizations to hold emerging issues forums designed to obtain a broad spectrum of experiential and anecdotal information from the field on specific topics. These forums provide professional perspectives on substantive policing issues affecting law enforcement professionals across the country.

The COPS Office has awarded $1 million to fund the Critical Response for Technical Assistance program, which is designed to provide targeted technical assistance to law enforcement agencies dealing with high-profile events, major incidents or sensitive issues of varying need.

The COPS Office has allocated nearly $5 million to a contract award to support the Collaborative Reform Initiative for Technical Assistance program, and $150,000 to fund the continuation of a program evaluation of the initiative. Collaborative reform is a long-term strategy that identifies issues within an agency that may affect public trust and then offers recommendations based on a comprehensive agency assessment for how to resolve those issues and enhance the relationship between the police and the community.

Read full coverage here.