United States Attorney William M. McSwain Announces Nearly $60 Million in Grants Available to Support Offenders’ Successful Reentry into Communities and to Prevent their Reversion to Criminal Behavior

PHILADELPHIA – United States Attorney William M. McSwain announced that nearly $60 million in Department of Justice grants is available to help communities address public safety by supporting the successful reentry back into their communities of adult and juvenile offenders who have served their prison sentences.

The funding is available through the Office of Justice Programs (OJP), the federal government’s leading source of public safety funding and crime victim assistance in state, local, and tribal jurisdictions. OJP’s programs support a wide array of activities and services, including adult and juvenile reentry initiatives and research projects designed to improve our knowledge of what works in reentry programming. 

“Providing offenders who have paid their debt to society with functional ways to reintegrate into their communities is an important piece of the Department’s strategy for promoting public safety,” said U.S. Attorney McSwain. “And what we have learned from our District’s reentry program – Supervision to Aid Reentry (STAR) – is that these programs work. For example, in our District, statistics show that the recidivism and revocation rates of offenders who graduate from the STAR program are significantly lower than offenders residing in our District who did not participate in the program.”

“Our District’s STAR program is a national model, and its success is directly attributable to the strong partnerships we have forged with the Federal Community Defenders’ Office, the U.S. Probation Office, and the Court,” continued U.S. Attorney McSwain. “I encourage all who are eligible to apply for these available grants to strengthen and grow reentry programs in our District and beyond.”

“Our nation is facing difficult public safety challenges that demand strong and immediate action. The high rate of recidivism poses a dire threat to community safety and is being met with a robust response by this Administration,” said Katharine T. Sullivan, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs. “The Department of Justice is front and center in the fight to meet this persistent challenge. OJP is making historic amounts of grant funding available to ensure that our communities have access to innovative and diverse solutions.”

The following funding opportunities are currently available, with additional ones coming in the near future:

• Review and Validation of the First Step Act Risk Assessment Tool

Link:                            https://nij.ojp.gov/funding/opportunities/nij-2020-fsa

Available Funds:         Determined after selection              

Deadline:                     April 10, 2020

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the research, development, and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. With this funding opportunity, NIJ seeks to review and revalidate, on an annual basis, the risk assessment tool developed in response to the First Step Act. The risk assessment tool – the Prisoner Assessment Tool Targeting Estimated Risk and Needs (PATTERN) – will be used by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to predict the likelihood of general and violent recidivism for all BOP inmates. Governmental agencies are excluded from eligibility for this grant. NIJ expects to support multiple individual consultants with this funding, and those consultants selected will work as a team to address First Step Act mandates.

• Correctional Adult Reentry Education, Employment, and Recidivism Reduction Strategies Program

            Link:                            https://bja.ojp.gov/funding/opportunities/bja-2020-17104

            Available Funds:         $7.2 million                                        

            Deadline:                     April 27, 2020

The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) seeks applications to implement or expand education and employment programs that emphasize strong partnerships with corrections, parole, probation, education, workforce development, and reentry service providers. Programs funded by these grants will target prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities and should be focused on the three-year period before release, as well as upon transition and reentry into the community. The following entities are eligible to apply for and receive funding pursuant to this grant: state or local governmental agencies (or their components); federally recognized Indian tribal governments; or nonprofit organizations with a demonstrated history of providing comprehensive reentry services.

• Improving Reentry for People with Substance Use Disorders Program

            Link:                            https://bja.ojp.gov/SCASUD20

            Available Funds:         $13.2 million                                      

            Deadline:                     April 27, 2020

BJA seeks applications for funding to establish, expand, and improve treatment for people with substance use disorders during their incarceration and reentry into the community, which in turn will help to reduce recidivism, promote public safety, and recovery. The following entities are eligible to apply for and receive funding pursuant to this grant: states, units of local government, federally recognized tribal governments, and nonprofit agencies.

• Improving Community Supervision Outcomes Through Swift, Certain, and Fair Responses

            Link:                            https://bja.ojp.gov/funding/opportunities/bja-2020-17096

            Available Funds:         $3 million                                           

            Deadline:                     April 28, 2020

BJA seeks applications from community supervision agencies, e.g., adult probation and parole or pretrial services, to develop and test new or enhanced applications of the swift, certain, and fair (SCF) principles of intervention. The SCF principles of intervention were developed by BJA to reduce recidivism and improve outcomes for people under community supervision. The following entities are eligible to apply for and receive funding pursuant to this grant: states, units of local government, and federally recognized tribal governments.

• Second Chance Act Youth Offender Reentry Program

Link:                            https://ojjdp.ojp.gov/funding/opportunities/ojjdp-2020-17350

Available Funds:         $7 million                                           

Deadline:                     April 28, 2020

The Second Chance Act Youth Offender Reentry Program encourages collaboration between state agencies, local government, and community and faith-based organizations to address the challenges that reentry and recidivism reduction pose for moderate to high-risk juvenile offenders returning to their communities from juvenile residential or correctional facilities. The following entities are eligible to apply for and receive funding pursuant to this grant: states (including territories), local governments, or federally recognized Indian tribal governments, in partnership with interested persons (including federal corrections and supervision agencies), service providers, and nonprofit organizations.

• Innovations in Reentry Initiative: Building System Capacity and Testing Strategies to Reduce Recidivism

Link:                            https://bja.ojp.gov/funding/opportunities/bja-2020-17281

Available Funds:         $4 million                                           

Deadline:                     May 4, 2020

This program will help jurisdictions assess their reentry system, identify strengths and gaps, and then build capacity for improving the reentry system in place or expanding services it provides. The following entities are eligible to apply for and receive funding pursuant to this grant: states, units of local government, and federally recognized tribal governments.

• Second Chance Act Community-Based Reentry Program

Link:                            https://bja.ojp.gov/funding/opportunities/bja-2020-17110

Total Available:          $13.5 million                                      

Deadline:                     May 4, 2020

BJA seeks applications to implement or expand on reentry programs that demonstrate strong partnerships with corrections, parole, probation, and other reentry service providers. These partnerships should develop comprehensive case management plans that directly address criminogenic risk and needs, as determined by validated criminogenic risk assessments, and include delivery or facilitation of services. The following entities are eligible to apply for and receive funding pursuant to this grant: nonprofit organizations and federally recognized tribal governments.

• Research and Evaluation on Promising Reentry Initiatives  

Link:                            https://nij.ojp.gov/funding/opportunities/nij-2020-17295

Available Funds:         $6 million                                          

Deadline:                     May 5, 2020

With this solicitation, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) requests proposals for rigorous research to examine reentry initiatives that incorporate promising practices, strategies, or programs. NIJ is particularly interested in supporting evaluations of innovative reentry initiatives that focus on offenders with a moderate-to-high risk of reoffending. The following entities are eligible to apply for and receive funding pursuant to this grant: states; units of local government; federally recognized Indian tribal governments that perform law enforcement functions; nonprofit and for-profit organizations; and institutions of higher learning.

• Second Chance Act Evaluation Participation Support Program

Link:                          https://bja.ojp.gov/funding/opportunities/bja-2020-17680

Available Funds:       $4 million      

Deadline:                   May 28, 2020

BJA seeks applicants to participate in an evaluation of their Second Chance Act-funded programs. The following entities are eligible to apply for, and receive, funding pursuant to this grant: units or components of state, local, or county governments and federally recognized Indian tribal governments, provided that applicants are current, or previous, recipients of BJA Second Chance Act funds and are running reentry programs ready for a rigorous, randomized control trial evaluation.

For more information regarding all OJP funding opportunities, please visit: https://www.ojp.gov/funding/explore/current-funding-opportunities