Boost Your Justice Business: Get Funding for Tech!

The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) seeks to enhance the ability of justice agencies to share information in order to support critical public safety and criminal justice system activities. BJA plans to address this nationwide need by supporting development and implementation of national policy and best practices, developing national consensus standards in support of information sharing, and delivering training and technical assistance services. Through this solicitation, BJA is seeking to enable the nation’s criminal justice community to benefit from improved information sharing through advanced technology and tools that will increase efficiency, improve operations, and promote cost savings and reuse. BJA’s National Justice Information Sharing (JIS) Initiative will work collaboratively with key stakeholders and national partner organizations to identify critical issues and problems and provide resources in response to emerging challenges in courts, corrections, reentry, crime and drug abuse prevention, law enforcement, and tribal justice.This program is funded under both the Edward Byrne Memorial Competitive Grant Program (Byrne Competitive Program) and the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program.

Authorized by the Department of Justice Appropriations Act, 2010, (Pub. L. 111-117), the Byrne Competitive Program helps local communities improve the capacity of state and local criminal justice systems and provides for national support efforts including training and technical assistance programs strategically targeted to address local needs. The JAG Program (42 U.S.C.

3751(a)) is the primary provider of federal criminal justice funding to state and local jurisdictions, and JAG funds support all components of the criminal justice system. The JAG Program authorization also provides that “the Attorney General may reserve not more than 5 percent, to be granted to 1 or more States or units of local government, for 1 or more of the purposes specified in section 3751 of this title, pursuant to his determination that the same is necessary—(1) to combat, address, or otherwise respond to precipitous or extraordinary increases in crime, or in a type or types of crime” (42 U.S.C. 3756).