Research on the Impact of Public Policy on Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Justice System, Fiscal Year 2021

The Department of Justice is committed to advancing work that promotes civil rights, increases access to justice, supports crime victims, protects the public from crime and evolving threats, and builds trust between law enforcement and the community.

With this solicitation, NIJ seeks applications for funding of investigator-initiated proposals for evidence-based, nonpartisan analyses of existing evidence to examine how observed racial and ethnic disparities in the justice system might be reduced through public policy. NIJ seeks applications in two categories:

Research to Identify Policy Interventions
Secondary Analysis of Data from Relevant Existing Studies

NIJ anticipates making one award under Category 1 and up to 4 awards under Category 2. Applicants may submit proposals to both categories. Applications must identify the Category to which a proposal is submitted. NIJ will accept proposals for analyses of existing evidence to examine how observed racial and ethnic disparities in the justice system might be reduced through public policy in either the criminal and juvenile justice context, or both.

Research can provide practical solutions to the obstacles faced by criminal justice practitioners as they work to reduce racial and ethnic disparities. Through these partnerships, criminal justice practitioners can independently assess their programs and measure outcomes. Likewise, criminal justice researchers can better understand the goals and purposes criminal justice practitioners seek to achieve and therefore provide more practical solutions for practitioners. Ultimately, these partnerships provide criminal justice practitioners with practice- and policy-relevant information while affording researchers the opportunity to contribute to the current body of knowledge. NIJ encourages applicants to consider researcher practitioner partnerships in responding to this solicitation.

Applications proposing research involving partnerships with criminal justice or other agencies, should include a strong letter of support, signed by an appropriate decision-making authority from each proposed, partnering agency. A letter of support should include the partnering agency's acknowledgement that de-identified data derived from, provided to, or obtained through this project will be archived by the grant recipient with the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) at the conclusion of the award. Applicants and their potential partners are encouraged to review the NACJD's policies and protections at (NACJD). If selected for award, grantees will be expected to have a formal agreement in place with partnering agencies by January 1, 2022. That formal agreement must include a provision to meet the data archiving requirements of the award.

In the case of partnerships that will involve the use of federal award funds by multiple partnering agencies to carry out the proposed project, only one entity/partnering agency may be the applicant (as is the case with any application submitted in response to this solicitation); any others must be proposed as subrecipients.