Description

This program, administered by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) at the U.S. Department of Justice, funds demonstration or pilot projects that expand the capacity of state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement agencies to implement innovative or evidence-based initiatives. The focus is on projects that improve officer and public safety, advance crime fighting, increase organizational effectiveness, and promote community safety through community policing (“common sense policing”).

Applicants may propose projects in one of eleven targeted areas:

• Preventing and investigating domestic terrorism
• Violent crime enforcement and investigations
• Gang violence enforcement and investigations
• Detecting and investigating human trafficking
• Investigating and interrupting child exploitation
• Addressing vagrancy and squatting
• Immigration and border security
• Investigating and interrupting opioid and drug markets
• Officer recruitment, hiring, and retention
• Unmanned aerial systems
• Investigating and interrupting cybercrime

Collaboration through partnerships with other law enforcement agencies and stakeholders is encouraged. Applicants are also urged to include appropriate evaluation components and must clearly articulate how their project addresses a specific public safety need or gap in services.