Highlighting three years of OJP achievements

After more than three years at the helm of the Office of Justice Programs, Assistant Attorney General Amy L. Solomon stepped away from her post on July 26^th, passing the torch to Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brent J. Cohen. Cohen, who has served alongside AAG Solomon for the majority of her tenure at OJP, will now step into the role of Acting Assistant Attorney General.

Over the last three-plus years, AAG Solomon has led OJP, the principal grantmaking, research, and statistical arm of the Department of Justice, overseeing roughly $5 billion in annual resources to advance safety and justice at the state, local, and tribal levels. During this time, OJP has reimagined a role for communities as co-producers of safety and justice, working on all fronts to reduce violence, end the cycle of trauma and victimization, address the issues that lead to justice system involvement and open pathways to opportunity and healing.

OJP has expanded the role of community stakeholders—especially community-based organizations and people with lived experience—in tackling public safety challenges, working hand in hand with law enforcement and criminal and juvenile justice professionals. OJP has worked to operationalize this vision under AAG Solomon’s leadership, leveraging the distinct expertise and collective strength of its six program offices – the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Office for Victims of Crime, and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking. Since 2021, OJP’s successes have run the gamut, ranging from increasing staffing levels and engagement with the field to implementing core elements of the Justice Department’s work with states and localities under the landmark Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

Highlights of OJP’s recent successes include:

Reducing Violence and Protecting Community Safety:

• In fulfilling our critical responsibilities under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, we awarded more than $238 million to support state crisis intervention programs and supported the launch of an Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center, all aimed at preventing guns from falling into the hands of people who pose a threat to themselves or to others.
• We’ve awarded almost $200 million—and counting!—under the OJP-wide Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative, an unprecedented funding and research investment that is a centerpiece of the Department’s anti-violence strategy and a cornerstone of the President’s Safer America Plan.
• We joined federal partners in recognizing Community Violence Awareness Week, culminating in a graduation ceremony for the first class of the Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy.
• We have added 22 sites to BJA’s National Public Safety Partnership, bringing the total number of PSP engagements to more than 60 communities nationwide.
• OJP developed a Violent Crime Reduction Roadmap that catalogues DOJ programs and resources designed to support local jurisdictions in their efforts to reduce gun and serious violence.
• We have deepened our investments in efforts to combat hate crimes, providing resources to law enforcement agencies, community-based organizations, and civil rights groups to prevent and respond to hate crimes and bias-motivated incidents. And to prevent youth hate crimes and identity-based bullying, OJJDP has launched a multi-pronged initiative that included a comprehensive webinar series and 19 roundtable discussions with young people to help inform the development of a youth hate crime prevention curriculum and other resources.
• BJA established the Mass Violence Advisory Initiative to provide peer-to-peer assistance to law enforcement leaders following a mass violence tragedy.

Meeting the Needs of Youth:

• OJJDP launched its Continuum of Care initiative to help jurisdictions build an infrastructure of support for youth, from prevention and intervention to trauma-informed services and reentry.
• We reinvigorated the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, which is now developing recommendations to Congress and the President on strategies to increase access to services and opportunities for youth, with the goal of preventing justice system involvement and supporting better outcomes for young people.
• OJJDP created the Children’s Justice Project in collaboration with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to identify the remains of children who are deceased but unidentified that will bring answers to their families.
• OJJDP forged a new partnership with AmeriCorps to build a network of advocates working to support youth reentering their communities after involvement in the justice system and to provide opportunities for justice-involved youth.

Serving Crime Victims:

• OVC released proposed revisions to the VOCA Victim Compensation Rule for the first time in more than two decades. OVC aims to finalize these guidelines before the end of this year, expanding eligibility and coverage options for crime victims and greatly increasing program access.
• OVC launched the National Center for Culturally Responsive Victim Services, the Trauma Recovery Center Demonstration Project and the Meeting the Basic Needs of Crime Victims in Underserved Communities initiative, all to reach people in historically marginalized and underserved communities and address the needs of those who have suffered repeated exposure to violence and trauma.
• OVC expanded support for its Mass Violence Victimization Resource Center to improve emergency response strategies to mass violence and meet the material and behavioral health needs of victims.
• OVC held its first National Crime Victims’ Rights Week Candlelight Vigil in over a decade, honoring victims and survivors of violent crime. And OVC supported the first ever National Summit on Mass Violence Victims and Survivors, drawing over 1,000 individuals in person and virtually to explore evidence-based fundamentals of mass violence preparation, response, recovery, and resilience.
• OVC managed the Federal government’s largest grant portfolio to meet the needs of victims and survivors of human trafficking.

Advancing Justice Reform and Supporting Reentry:

• We have brought in talented professionals with lived experience to inform our work, including three BJA Second Chance Fellows and three new youth reentry fellows.
• BJA launched a Second Chance Community-Based Reentry Incubator Initiative that is helping to break down barriers to federal resources by providing funding through intermediary organizations to grow the capacity of smaller community-based reentry service providers.
• BJA funded the innovative Reimagining Justice initiative, which supports community-centered, data-driven strategies to address low-level safety issues while reducing unnecessary justice system involvement.
• We’ve focused on making the nation’s corrections systems more humane through BJA’s Transforming Correctional Cultures, Climates and Spaces program, which supports innovative facility design, and we are building knowledge of better correctional practices through NIJ research and evaluation programs.
• OJP has proudly supported efforts by our federal partners to expand education, employment and healthcare for currently and formerly incarcerated individuals, from supporting the reinstatement of Federal Pell Grants for incarcerated students to building awareness of new opportunities for Medicaid waivers and developing continuity of care resources about medical coverage for people as they return to their communities.
• Through BJA’s Zero Returns to Homelessness initiative, we are helping to ensure that people returning from incarceration have safe and stable housing.
• BJA has expanded the Justice Counts initiative to deliver timely and relevant metrics to policymakers and busy practitioners, laying the groundwork for data-driven decision-making across the criminal justice system.
• We have grown the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, which has now supported 44 states in adopting a wide range of policy reforms that have yielded more than $3 billion in averted costs and savings, often alongside reductions in recidivism and crime.

Improving Behavioral Health:

• Over the last three years, BJA invested more than $50 million in 100 communities in 37 states through its Connect and Protect program, supporting a range of strategies that join trained healthcare professionals with law enforcement officers in 911 and 988 calls. 
• Through the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program, BJA has delivered over $40 million since 2021 to support cross-system partnerships designed to reduce justice system involvement and improve outcomes for individuals with mental health disorders or co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. 
• We virtually convened more than 2,500 law enforcement, behavioral health and other professionals to discuss strategies for responding to emergency calls at the national Taking the Call Conference. 
• BJA launched the Criminal Justice-Mental Health Learning Site program, a peer-to-peer learning opportunity for jurisdictions seeking to implement more effective responses to individuals with behavioral health needs, as well as the Aligning Health and Safety tool designed to help state policymakers support local systems improvements at the intersection of criminal justice and behavioral health. 
• BJA worked with partners across disciplines to develop Guidelines for Managing Substance Withdrawal in Jails, a tool to help jail administrators manage acute withdrawal among people sentenced to jail, more than 60% of whom have a substance use disorder.
• BJA has invested more than $419 million over the past three years to address the nation’s substance use and overdose crises through the Comprehensive, Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Use Program (COSSUP), and has partnered with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to expand the Building Bridges Initiative to increase access to opioid use disorder treatment options in our nation’s jails. 

Promoting Equal Justice and Constitutional Policing:

• We joined leaders across the Department in urging courts and justice system agencies to rethink potentially unconstitutional and discriminatory practices around fees and fines, and invested in efforts to help jurisdictions develop equitable fines and fees practices that are aligned with constitutional principles and civil rights and other law, including the presumption that youth are indigent and therefore unable to pay fees & fines. 
• BJA launched the Law Enforcement Knowledge Lab, a free training, technical assistance and resource hub designed to promote constitutional policing in America’s communities.
• BJA established the Jails and Justice Support Center, a national hub for information, training and resources to ensure the safe, humane and effective operation of America’s 3,000 jails.
• OJJDP is supporting dedicated training and technical assistance to assist states in meeting the jail removal requirement of the Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Act, which prohibits youth in adult jails in most circumstances.
• We have redoubled our efforts and are making progress in improving the collection of deaths in custody data, with the goal of better understanding the nature and scope of the problem so that we can collectively prevent and reduce deaths in custody moving forward.
• We supported the launch of the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database (NLEAD), a first-of-its-kind centralized repository of official records of misconduct and commendation for federal law enforcement officers that is designed to help agencies make more informed hiring decisions, enhancing both accountability and public safety.

Ensuring Equity and Access to Resources:

• We have incorporated into many of our competitive funding opportunities a priority consideration for applicants that demonstrate enhanced capacities and capabilities based on their status as a population-specific organization, as well as for proposals designed to promote equity and remove barriers for historically marginalized and underserved populations.
• We have redoubled our engagement with our core stakeholders and expanded our outreach to new partners in the field, significantly increasing interest in and awareness of our resources. In FY2023, we received roughly 1,200 more applications for competitive funding than we did in the year prior. One-third of applications for FY23 competitive grants came from organizations that had never applied for OJP funding or had not done so in recent history. In total, we made over 3,900 formula and competitive awards, amounting to more than $4.4 billion in funding for a wide range of safety and justice issues.
• We have worked to streamline and simplify the application process, with a particular focus on breaking down barriers to resources for Tribal partners. OVC now invites Tribes to apply for the Tribal Victim Services Set-Aside (TVSSA) program by completing a user-friendly project checklist or simply by having a conversation with an OVC staff person, eliminating the requirement to submit a traditional project narrative. OJP will significantly expand efforts to streamline funding opportunities in FY 2025, opening doors to resources across our applicant pool. 
• We’ve expanded the reach of our resources through microgrants and capacity-building assistance for smaller, grassroots community-based organizations that too often face barriers to federal support. 
• NIJ launched the Center to Enhance Research Capacity at Minority Serving Institutions, a first-of-its-kind resource designed to enhance the research infrastructure of MSIs and grow the ranks of MSI researchers developing scientific solutions to issues of crime and justice that reflect a diversity of experiences and perspectives.

Advancing Science to Guide Policy and Practice:

• NIJ restored the W.E.B. Du Bois Fellowship for Research on Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Justice System, which supports rigorous research that advances knowledge about the intersections of race, crime, violence and the administration of justice in the United States.
• NIJ hosted its first National Research Conference in over a decade, convening nearly 550 researchers, practitioners, and other stakeholders to share cutting edge research findings and explore ways to translate evidence into action. 
• In 2023 alone, NIJ awarded more than $91 million to foster research and evaluation efforts, helping stakeholders nationwide better understand and address the breadth of safety and justice issues facing their communities. 

Improving Transparency and Engagement with Stakeholders:

• OJP developed and released a Policy Blueprint that articulates a clear statement of values and frames OJP’s mission around three overarching priorities: advancing community safety, building community trust and strengthening the community’s role as co-producer of safety and justice.
• OJP’s program offices have released hundreds of policy and guidance documents, research and statistical reports, stakeholder outreach materials, and other publications, including:
  • NIJ’s Desistance From Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice, a collection of papers analyzing desistance-focused strategies in criminal justice;
  • BJS’s Just the Stats series, which provides digestible, timely and relevant data to policymakers, reporters and the public;
  • BJA’s Covid-19 Vaccine Toolkit for the Law Enforcement Community, a guide for police in raising awareness about the importance of vaccinations;
  • OJJDP’s and NIJ’s Trends in Youth Arrests for Violent Crimes, a major contribution to policy discussions around youth involvement in violent crime;
  • OVC’s monthly broadcast, From the Director’s Desk, launched to increase transparency for stakeholders on the Crime Victims Fund and other OVC-led initiatives;
  • SMART-supported research on the scope of rape victimization and perpetration among college students, exploring areas of opportunity for prevention of campus sexual assault.
• We launched an interactive grants map that charts current and recent year funding for grants across OJP and in jurisdictions throughout the nation as well as a toolkit for grantees to use to showcase the investments and innovative work on the ground.
• Our team has crisscrossed the country to engage directly with the communities we serve, visiting grantees and other stakeholders, learning from their insights and perspectives, and bringing lessons back to D.C. to inform our work. 

This list of accomplishments represents only a few of the highlights of OJP’s work over the last three-and-a-half years to improve public safety and advance equal justice throughout the nation. OJP will continue to build on this momentum under the direction of Acting Assistant Attorney General Brent J. Cohen, working in partnership with our grantees and stakeholders to bring our collective vision of safe, just and engaged communities to life.