With this solicitation, Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) seeks to support efforts by both wrongful conviction review (WCR) entities, which represent individuals with post-conviction claims of innocence to review individual cases, and conviction integrity or review units (CIUs) to enhance criminal justice system integrity.
Donor Name: Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA)
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 05/15/2024
Size of the Grant: More than $1 million
Grant Duration: 3 Years
Details:
Goals
To enhance and/or expand the capacity of WCR entities and CIUs and their criminal justice and victim services partners to better identify, assess, and manage post-conviction claims of innocence while translating lessons learned into practice to prevent future error and to bring justice for victims.
Objectives
Ensure all grantees over the project period have BJA WCR/CIU TTA access to support the effective implementation of their projects to:
- Increase the number of case review requests received by the program.
- Increase and document the number of case reviews that result in an innocence exoneration by the program.
- Develop and enhance strong partnerships between entities and other criminal justice organizations and victim services.
- Develop and implement a wrongful conviction risk assessment process.
- Enhance capacity to identify and review high-risk cases.
- Enhance the expertise of the entities to support quality post-conviction and appellate legal representation in the identified cases.
- Enhance the ability to demonstrate the value of identifying appropriate suspects when convictions are overturned.
- Enhance the ability to demonstrate the value of seeking to overturn challenged convictions.
- Enhance the collection and analysis of data to support the prevention of error and enhance efforts to review and manage claims of innocence.
Funding Information
- Category 1: Wrongful Conviction Review EntityLed Strategy (WCR Entity-Led Strategy): $600,000
- Project Period: 36 months
- Category 2: Prosecutor/Conviction Integrity Unit-Led Partnerships with Wrongful Conviction Review Entities (CIU-Unit-Led Partnerships): $600,000
- Project Period: 36 months
- Category 3: Wrongful Conviction Review/Conviction Integrity Unit Training and Technical Assistance (WCR/CIU TTA): $1,200,000
- Project Period: 24 months
Eligibility Criteria
For Category 1 and 2
- State governments
- Special district governments
- City or township governments
- County governments
- Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
- Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized)
- Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
- Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
- Public– and State-controlled institutions of higher education
- Private institutions of higher education
For Category 3
Eligible applicants are limited to entities that have experience and expertise in administering conviction integrity and review units or experience in reviewing cases of post-conviction and appeal claims of innocence such as those applicants in Category 1 and 2. The following entities are eligible to apply:
- Public- and State-controlled institutions of higher education
- Private institutions of higher education, other than institutions of higher education
- Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
- Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
- Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
For more information, visit Grants.gov.
