The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Justice Programs (OJP), Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) seeks applications for funding to implement emerging technologies designed to enhance training and law enforcement responses to individuals in crisis.
Donor Name: Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA)
State: All States
County: All Counties
U.S. Territories: Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 06/29/2023
Size of the Grant: $800,000
Grant Duration: 3 years
Details:
BJA seeks to support law enforcement agencies through the adoption of innovative, immersive virtual reality technology designed for training law enforcement. New technologies—including virtual reality systems that are designed for use by police, allow for multiparticipant engagement, and can be integrated into training programs focused on improving responses to encounters with individuals in crisis—should be the basis of proposals for this program. New technologies, such as those designed for law enforcement trainings to model reality virtually, should enable police to prepare for the intense situations they may face in communities. Such technologies allow law enforcement to share their world in a virtual setting with critical partners interested in public safety. Adequately and effectively preparing law enforcement to engage with every member of the community, including individuals with intellectual and/or development disabilities and people with mental health disorders, results in greater public safety outcomes for all and increased community trust.
Goals
This program seeks applications from states, institutions of higher education with campus-based law enforcement entities, local governments, and federally recognized Indian Tribes to implement customized, multiparticipant, fully immersive, virtual and/or augmented reality-based training technology. Applicants should describe how the proposed training will improve participants’ de-escalation skills while enhancing responses to individuals in crisis, including people with intellectual and/or development disabilities and individuals experiencing a mental health and/or substance use crisis, as a means to facilitate effective and safer interactions between law enforcement and the communities they serve. The goal of the program is to implement emerging technologies utilized in scenario-based police training that is evidence based and designed to ensure the safety of police officers, individuals they come in contact with, and the community at large.
Objectives
- Describe the existing training capacity of the applicant and how the adoption of new tools based on emerging virtual reality technologies will enhance and improve outcomes for the department.
- Describe how the agency will utilize fully immersive, multiparticipant, customized virtual reality technology designed to allow participants to engage with multiple users in virtual scenarios. Participants should be able to communicate with one another in the virtual world and interact within the scenario using the equipment issued. The focus of the training should be effective de-escalation while responding to individuals in crisis, and it should be coupled with an evidence-based curriculum such as BJA’s Crisis Response and Intervention Training (CRIT). Outcome measures must be built into the proposed new training tools to demonstrate effectiveness. Trainings utilizing novel, emerging technology should ensure participants are able to experience all existing agency force options via the newly obtained equipment/technology. Virtual reality scenarios should be customized to the environment in which officers currently operate (e.g., roadways, subways, shopping centers, schools, homes) and include modeling of physical barriers, environmental/weather changes, and other situational factors that result in crisis confrontations, including those that have historically resulted in the use of force but that may have concluded without the need for physical confrontation. Describe how this investment will benefit regional partners, surrounding jurisdictions, or smaller agencies.
- Develop and/or enhance agency-wide strategy for the integration of the new immersive virtual reality scenario-based training to allow multiple officers/persons to simultaneously participate in the training as a means for officers to practice and community members to experience crisis intervention and de-escalation from the perspective of law enforcement. The training should be planned and implemented with community partners, including individuals or family members with lived experience, behavioral health providers, and members of the disability rights community, as well as advocates for those individuals experiencing dementia or other cognitive disabilities. Individuals in the community who do not work in law enforcement and/or who are not traditionally represented in law enforcement should be sought out to participate in and experience the training. Agencies awarded funding must also work in partnership with community/ culturally specific organization(s) in the development and assessment of the curriculum.
- In partnership with a university research team, develop the evidence-based course content and scenarios. Track and assess activities undertaken with the new technology to include documenting the impact of new tools used in training. Funding recipients must also work with BJA’s training and technical assistance (TTA) provider to share policy and practices among the cohort of agencies participating in the program. Agencies awarded funding must also work with the TTA provider to ensure quality performance measure data is captured and provided to BJA. For example, data from the training program such as the number of officers trained, the frequency and length of trainings provided, information describing use of force outcomes among those officers trained with the new technology, and perceptions of the training as provided by those individuals trained, including members of the community, will be required.
Priority Areas
The Department of Justice 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.
Funding Information
- Anticipated Total Amount to be Awarded Under Solicitation: $8,800,000
- Anticipated Maximum Dollar Amount of Awards: $800,000
Period of Performance Duration (Months)
36
Eligibility Criteria
- Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized)
- City or township governments
- Public and State controlled institutions of higher education
- State governments
- County governments
For the 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.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.
