BJA FY 22 Upholding the Rule of Law and Preventing Wrongful Convictions Program

OJP 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 builds trust between law enforcement and the community. The ROL/WCR Program supports efforts by wrongful conviction review entities (WCR entities) that represent individuals with post-conviction claims of innocence to review individual cases.

County, state, or local public defender offices that have in-house post-conviction representation programs that show demonstrable experience and competence in litigating post-conviction claims of innocence. If the applicant is not a WCR entity, they must be partnered with one.   For purposes of this solicitation, “state” means any state of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.   To advance Executive Order 13929 Safe Policing for Safe Communities, the Attorney General determined that all state, local, and university or college law enforcement agencies must be certified by an approved independent credentialing body or have started the certification process to be eligible for FY 2022 DOJ discretionary grant funding. To become certified, the law enforcement agency must meet two mandatory conditions: (1) the agency’s use-of-force policies adhere to all applicable federal, state, and local laws and (2) the agency’s use-of-force policies prohibit chokeholds except in situations where use of deadly force is allowed by law. The certification requirement also applies to law enforcement agencies receiving DOJ discretionary grant funding through a subaward. For detailed information on this certification requirement, please visit https://cops.usdoj.gov/SafePolicingEO to access the Standards for Certification on Safe Policing for Safe Communities, the Implementation Fact Sheet, and the List of Designated Independent Credentialing Bodies.   All recipients and subrecipients (including any for-profit organization) must forgo any profit or management fee.

For technical assistance with submitting the Application for Federal Assistance standard form (SF)-424 and a Disclosure of Lobbying Activities form (SF-LLL) in Grants.gov, contact the Grants.gov Customer Support Hotline at 800-518-4726, 606-545-5035, Grants.gov Customer Support, or support@grants.gov. The Grants.gov Support Hotline operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, except on federal holidays. For technical assistance with submitting the full application in DOJ's Justice Grants System (JustGrants), contact the JustGrants Service Desk at 833-872-5175 or JustGrants.Support@usdoj.gov. The JustGrants Service Desk operates 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. eastern time Monday-Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sunday, and federal holidays. For assistance with any other requirements of this solicitation, contact the OJP Response Center by telephone at 800-851-3420 or TTY: 301-240-6310 (hearing impaired only), or by email at grants@ncjrs.gov. The OJP Response Center hours of operation are 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., eastern time Monday-Friday, and 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on the solicitation closing date. grants@ncjrs.gov