This opportunity will support state, local, and tribal government efforts to reduce wasteful spending and inefficient uses of funds across justice system operations and redirect that funding to target crime and other public safety and/or justice system challenges. Applicants should propose projects that address one or more urgent local justice system challenge. Applicants should use existing data and information to identify the specific challenges they will focus on and how they will refocus resources on the strategies and populations most likely to reduce crime. Jurisdictions may consider addressing challenges across the judicial system, including those related to law enforcement, prosecution, sentencing, jails and prisons, probation, and parole.
Examples of challenges that may be the focus of a project include, but are not limited to:
- Addressing shortages in correctional officers.
- Fortifying correctional environments to increase the prevention and interdiction of contraband (e.g., drugs and weapons, other prohibited items) into and within facilities. • Developing and testing applications of advanced technology to increase efficiency (e.g., artificial intelligence, facial recognition, scanners, counter-drone).
- Improving court processing and efficient docket management.
- Improving pretrial systems.
- Addressing the needs of high system utilization by populations with mental health and/or substance use issues.
- Improving meaningful and timely information sharing across justice system partners, such as adopting a unique, universal, statewide identification number to enable the collection of more comprehensive and useful crime and recidivism data or improving offender-specific information sharing to better manage and hold accountable high-risk individuals through detention, reentry, and supervision.
- Tracking data across prosecutors’ offices to understand relationships between violent crime and charging and adjudication decisions.
- Strengthening the ability of law enforcement to investigate and respond to crimes by focusing on less resource-intensive alternative responses to mental health crises or improving the performance and timeliness of forensic evidence processing.
- Prioritizing confinement resources and bed space to incarcerate serious, chronic, or violent offenders.
Eligible Applicants:
- Government Entities
- State governments
- County governments
- City or township governments
- Special district governments
- Native American Tribal governments (federally recognized)
- Other Units of local government (include towns, boroughs, parishes, villages, or other general purpose political subdivisions of a state.)
Application Deadlines:
- Grants.gov Deadline: November 20, 2026, 11:59 pm Eastern
- Application JustGrants Deadline: December 1, 2026, 8:59 pm Eastern