BJA FY 13 Criminal Justice Improvement and Recidivism Reduction through the State Level Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI) | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The BJA FY 13 Criminal Justice Improvement and Recidivism Reduction through the State Level Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI) grant opportunity was designed to help states slow the growth of incarceration and corrections costs while maintaining, and ideally improving, public safety outcomes. The program is rooted in the reality that the United States correctional system had reached historically high levels by 2011, with about 2.2 million people incarcerated across federal, state, and local facilities (roughly 1 in every 107 adults). At the same time, community supervision was also expansive, with about 4.8 million people on probation or parole (about 1 in 50 adults). States were also facing a steep long term rise in corrections spending, increasing from about 12 billion in 1988 to more than 52 billion in 2011, creating major budget pressure and pushing policymakers to look for approaches that reduce costs without increasing crime.

JRI is framed as a data driven, systems level strategy rather than a single program model. The core problem the solicitation highlights is that state leaders often lack clear, detailed, and timely explanations for why their prison, jail, probation, and parole populations are changing, and how those trends relate to crime, arrests, convictions, sentence lengths, revocations, and other decision points throughout the justice system. The grant supports extensive training and technical assistance so states can analyze these drivers in a rigorous way and then craft policy and practice options that address the specific points in the system creating unnecessary growth, inefficiency, or poor outcomes. In other words, it is meant to replace generalized assumptions about what is causing corrections growth with concrete analysis of what is actually happening in that state.

A central feature of the opportunity is the idea of “justice reinvestment.” The intent is that when states adopt reforms that safely reduce prison or jail growth and avoid future corrections spending, those resources can be redirected into strategies that perform better. The solicitation emphasizes reinvestment in high performing programs and approaches that support public safety goals and reduce recidivism, rather than simply cutting budgets. This approach is also meant to create a feedback loop: cost savings help fund continued improvements, and those improvements can produce further reductions in crime and reoffending.

This FY 13 solicitation focuses on Phase II, which is the implementation stage. That means the funding is aimed less at initial exploration and more at providing intensive technical assistance and support as states put their JRI strategies into practice. Implementation support can include helping states translate policy changes into operational reality across agencies, align practices with new statutes or rules, measure progress, and troubleshoot obstacles that commonly arise when changing sentencing, supervision, treatment, or resource allocation frameworks.

The opportunity is administered by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and is part of a broader public private partnership involving BJA, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and JRI technical assistance and assessment providers. The partnership structure matters because the award is not simply meant to fund services directly delivered by a state; it is meant to fund organizations with national reach and expertise that can provide structured, high quality technical assistance to states engaged in JRI work. Funding for the program was authorized under the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013 (Pub. L. 113-6).

From a grantmaking standpoint, this is a discretionary grant under CFDA 16.751 (Edward Byrne Memorial Competitive Grant Program). There is no cost sharing or matching requirement, which lowers the barrier to participation for eligible applicants. The funding opportunity number is BJA-2013-3630, it was posted May 7, 2013, and it closed June 27, 2013 (with an archive date of July 27, 2013). The listed award ceiling is up to 4,000,000 dollars, with no stated award floor.

Eligibility is limited and geared toward entities that can operate at a national scope. Specifically, eligible applicants are national scope private nonprofit organizations and colleges and universities (both public and private). The listing also notes that nonprofits must have 501(c)(3) status (other than institutions of higher education). The practical effect is that state agencies themselves are not the primary direct applicants under this particular solicitation; instead, expert intermediaries such as national nonprofits and academic institutions are positioned to compete for the award and then deliver the training, technical assistance, and implementation support to participating states.

Overall, the grant opportunity is best understood as an investment in statewide criminal justice system improvement using a structured, analytic method. It aims to help states diagnose what is driving corrections populations and spending, implement evidence informed policy and practice reforms to reduce recidivism and manage risk more effectively, and then reinvest avoided costs into strategies that sustain public safety gains over time.

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