The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) is offering this grant to refine and develop the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) estimation methodology.

To advance Executive Order 13929 Safe Policing for Safe Communities, the Attorney General determined that all state, local, and university or college law enforcement agencies must be certified by an approved independent credentialing body or have started the certification process to be eligible for FY 2022 DOJ discretionary grant funding. To become certified, the law enforcement agency must meet two mandatory conditions: (1) the agency’s use-of-force policies adhere to all applicable federal, state, and local laws and (2) the agency’s use-of-force policies prohibit chokeholds except in situations where use of deadly force is allowed by law. The certification requirement also applies to law enforcement agencies receiving DOJ discretionary grant funding through a subaward. For detailed information on this certification requirement, please visit https://cops.usdoj.gov/SafePolicingEO to access the Standards for Certification on Safe Policing for Safe Communities, the Implementation Fact Sheet, and the List of Designated Independent Credentialing Bodies.

All recipients and subrecipients (including any for-profit organization) must forgo any profit or management fee.

The purpose of the project funded through this solicitation is to conduct a statistical debrief of the methodology used to generate national estimates of crime based on the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The first set of national estimates based on this new methodology will be released in September 2022, marking the first time that NIBRS data will be the sole source of information on crimes known to law enforcement in the United States. This 1-year process will consist of system maintenance activities, additional estimation development work, and assessment of data on indicators not included in the Year 1 estimates.

Statutory Authority: Under section 302 of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, BJS is authorized to “make grants to, or enter into cooperative agreements or contracts with public agencies, institutions of higher education, private organizations, or private individuals” for purposes of collecting and analyzing criminal justice statistics. (34 U.S.C. § 10132(c)(1)).