The Bureau of Justice Statistics is offering this grant to design and test data collection methods for civil legal access to justice.

With this FY 2023 solicitation for the Access to Justice Design and Testing Program (AJDTP), BJS seeks support to conduct research and testing activities related to the development of new data collections that will measure persons’ access to justice for their civil legal needs and research on additional data sources to define and measure key indicators of access to justice for civil legal needs. As the DOJ’s principal federal statistical agency, BJS is responsible for the collection, analysis, publication, and dissemination of statistics on crime, those who commit crime, victims of crime, and the operations of criminal justice systems at all levels of government. Many crime victims and individuals who commit crimes face related civil legal issues both as a direct result of the offense or because of related circumstances. To fully understand the criminal-justice landscape, additional research is needed on the civil justice system. This research, however, must comply with section 818 of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act requirement that civil-justice research bear directly and substantially upon criminal justice matters. This project furthers the DOJ’s mission by establishing support to collect data from households on access to justice for civil legal needs in an effort to better understand the nature and magnitude of the intersection between the civil justice system and criminal justice system.