The East End Meridian Project H.O.P.E.: BCJI Planning

The Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation (BCJI) Program is a part of the Administration's larger Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative (NRI) that supports local and tribal communities in developing place-based strategies to change neighborhoods of distress into neighborhoods of opportunity. Recognizing that interconnected solutions are needed in order to resolve the interconnected problems existing in distressed communities, BCJI is designed to provide neighborhoods with coordinated federal support in the implementation of comprehensive place-based strategies to effectively reduce and prevent crime by connecting this support to broader comprehensive neighborhood revitalization efforts. This coordinated federal support includes integrated training and technical assistance (TTA) resources for federal grantees involved in planning or implementing a neighborhood revitalization project; the coordination and alignment of performance metrics and reporting requirements across agencies; and providing priority consideration during the application review process to applicants who aim to combine or leverage their funds with other federal, state, local, and private sector resources.

The goal of BCJI is to improve community safety by designing and implementing effective, comprehensive approaches to addressing crime within a targeted neighborhood as part of a broader strategy to advance neighborhood revitalization through cross-sector community-based partnerships. The FY 2015 program will focus on funding efforts in two major categories: planning and implementation grants.

The grant recipient will design and complete a strategic, collaborative, and community-oriented plan to reduce crime in a target neighborhood or community. The grant recipient will use planning funds to: identify, verify, and prioritize crime hot spots within identified neighborhood; work with cross-sector partners/management team to develop a strategy, drawing on a continuum of approaches to address crime drivers; pursue community partnerships and leadership, building support to ensure the community and residents are active in the process; collaborate regularly with local law enforcement, a research partner or research team, and the community to conduct analysis of crime drivers and an assessment of needs and available resources; and support planning and proactive outreach to garner new and/or leverage resources or funding, necessary to implement strategies identified in the strategic plan.

CA/NCF