Law Enforcement Organization of Planning & Research Directors (LEOPRD) Forum Project

The Edward Byrne Memorial Discretionary Grant Program (Byrne Discretionary Program) is funded under the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program. Authorized by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2009 (Pub. L. 111-8), the Byrne Discretionary Program helps local communities improve the capacity of state and local justice systems and provides for national support efforts including training and technical assistance programs strategically targeted to address local needs. The JAG Program (42 U.S.C. 3751(a)) is the primary provider of federal criminal justice funding to state and local jurisdictions, and JAG funds support all components of the criminal justice system. The JAG Program authorization also states that 'the Attorney General may reserve not more than 5 percent, to be granted to 1 or more States or units of local government, for 1 or more of the purposes specified in section 3751 of this title, pursuant to his determination that the same is necessary'(1) to combat, address, or otherwise respond to precipitous or extraordinary increases in crime, or in a type or types of crime' (42 U.S.C. 3756). This program is also funded in part by the Missing Alzheimer's Disease Patient Assistance Program (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2009 PUB. L. 111-8), which provides funds to defray the cost of planning, designing, establishing, and operating locally based, proactive programs to protect and locate missing patients with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias and other missing elderly individuals.

The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) will continue the Law Enforcement Organization of Planning and Research Directors (LEOPRD) Forum project. They will improve operations for law enforcement agencies (LEAs) by linking their planning and research directors (PRDs) in a network for the purpose of advancing the field of LEA planning and research. PERF will convene the Planning and Research Directors through a conference, maintain the LEOPRD website, build important new content, and conduct a survey on promising practices being used by planning and research units in the 200 largest LEAs in the U.S. In addition, the project will conduct a separate online survey with LEOPRD members addressing project performance measures, write a guide that outlines a set of model planning and research practices for different sized LEAs, and will disseminate the results of this project to participants.

NCA/NCF