FY 2023 Collaborative Reform Initiative: Organizational Assessment and Critical Response Solicitation

Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies that support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as violent crime, nonviolent crime, and fear of crime.

The Collaborative Reform Initiative Continuum of Services is designed to build trust between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve; improve operational efficiencies and effectiveness; enhance officers safety and wellness; and develop and disseminate evidence-based, promising, and innovative public safety practices.

Collaborative Reform Initiative Technical Assistance Center (CRI-TAC). In operation since 2017, CRI-TAC provides a wide array of technical assistance services, using a "by the field, for the field" approach. The CRI-TAC process is agency-driven and offers customizable, short-term technical assistance on more than 60 topics. The COPS Office is not seeking proposals for its funding through this solicitation.
Critical Response. The Critical Response program is designed to provide targeted TA to law enforcement agencies experiencing high profile events, major incidents, or sensitive issues of varying need. Critical Response is highly customizable and provides flexible assistance to law enforcement agencies in a variety of ways including after-action reviews, peer-to-peer exchanges; targeted in-depth review, analysis, and recommendations; and facilitated discussions with SMEs. Critical Response sites may vary in duration, depending upon the scope of the project. Shorter-term executive consultations may take as little as two weeks, while in-depth reviews of specific incidents or issues will take between six and nine months.
Organizational Assessment. The Organizational Assessment program offers the most intensive form of technical assistance on the continuum, involving in-depth assessments and long-term assistance on systemic issues that can challenge community trust and confidence. The ideal timeline for engagements will be a 12-month period after the intake process is completed, with the maximum time for engagements to be 18 months. During that period, it will be the responsibility of all involved parties to accomplish the mutual goal of police reform while acknowledging that sustaining these efforts ultimately must be the responsibility of local agencies and communities.

These programs are meant to complement each other and provide a comprehensive continuum of services. For more information about these programs, visit https://cops.usdoj.gov/collaborativereform.

The COPS Office is committed to advancing work that promotes civil rights and racial equity, increases access to justice, supports crime victims and individuals impacted by the justice system, strengthens community safety and protects the public from crime and evolving threats, and build trust between law enforcement and the community.

Statutory Authority

This program is authorized under the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, as amended, and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Title I, Part Q, Public Law 103-322, 34 U.S.C. § 10381 et seq.

All awards are subject to the availability of appropriated funds and any modifications or additional requirements that may be imposed by law.

Program-Specific Information

This program is authorized under the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, as amended, and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Title I, Part Q, Public Law 103-322, 34 U.S.C. § 10381 et seq.
All awards are subject to the availability of appropriated funds and any modifications or additional requirements that may be imposed by law.
For all identified deliverables, the applicant should adhere to the COPS Office Editorial and Style Manual. For projects that propose site-specific work, letters of support from the targeted agencies are strongly encouraged.

With any programmatic questions, please contact the COPS Office Response Center at 800-421-6770 or send questions via email to AskCopsRC@usdoj.gov. The COPS Office Response Center operates Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET, except on federal holidays.

Program Goals

Under this solicitation, the COPS Office seeks to support projects that allow for the identification and expansion of promising practices and produces knowledge products that follow the principles of good guidance:

Quality-driven, with an emphasis on action statements to drive promising practices and reduce variations in performance
Evidence-based, with recommendations that are consistent with the weight of the best available evidence identified through systematic review
Accessible, with clear language and manageable lengths that are appropriate and relevant for the law enforcement field
Memorable, to encourage immediate actions or aid for the complex situations law enforcement professionals face

To read an overview of the principles of community policing, please see the COPS Office publication Community Policing Defined.

Applicants should also consider the COPS Office performance measures when developing their own specific project goals and activities, which can be found in the "Performance Measures" section of this application.