Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Training and Technical Assistance

Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Training and Technical Assistance

The Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Training and Technical Assistance Program supports data-driven, place-based, and community-oriented strategies to reduce crime, build partnership, and enhance trust. 

Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Program

The Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation (BCJI) Program, formerly the Innovations in Community-Based Crime Reduction (CBCR) program, is a program of the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. BCJI supports data-driven, place-based, and community-oriented strategies to reduce crime, build partnership, and enhance trust in neighborhoods with hot spots of crime. Through a broad cross-sector partnership team, including neighborhood residents, BCJI grantees employ collaborative problem-solving processes to implement a wide range of crime prevention and intervention strategies to address the conditions which contribute to crime. 

The BCJI model is based on the principle that sustainable reductions in crime require collaboration among partners in the criminal justice system, service providers, and the communities they serve. The IACP, working with the University of Cincinnati and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, provides training and technical assistance (TTA) for BCJI grantee sites. The IACP promotes collaborative problem-solving processes between residents, community stakeholders, law enforcement, and criminal justice partners to collectively identify and address hot spot areas of criminal activity.

BCJI Program Model

Place-Based Strategies

BCJI grantee sites target where crime is concentrated to enhance the impact of community-based crime reduction efforts and neighborhood revitalization strategies. 


Building Partnerships and Enhance Trust

BCJI grantee sites utilize collaborative problem-solving processes to strengthen cross-sector partnerships and enhance trust. 

Data and Evidence Driven 

BCJI grantee sites improve the use of data and research to guide program strategy and enhance community-based crime reduction efforts. 


Community Engagement

BCJI grantee sites engage residents and community stakeholders in shaping and sustaining crime reduction and neighborhood revitalization efforts. 

Resources

Below are resources that can help BCJI sites identify the programmatic requirements to successfully implement crime reduction strategies in their communities. 

Fact Sheet

The IACP has created a fact sheet that outlines the four core elements of the program and the areas where IACP can provide technical assistance to sites.

 

BCJI Competitive Grant Announcements

The BCJI program promotes the integration of data-driven, place-based, comprehensive, and community-oriented strategies to reduce crime and revitalize communities. Applicants should consider Department of Justice priorities, including reducing gun violence, dismantling gang activity, and strengthening local capacity to combat drug abuse. Applicants should also consider targeting areas where crime is disproportionately concentrated. This multifaceted approach addresses the root causes of crime to promote long-term, sustainable change. 

Previous BCJI Solicitations

BCJI Project Resources

As part of the BCJI Program, sites are required to develop an action plan that describes the strategies they will take that align with the core elements of BCJI. Below are resources that can assist with formulating an action plan based on the work that took place during the planning phase.

The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) also offers templates, briefs, and site profiles of former and current BCJI sites who are graduated or in the planning phases of the program.

Webinars

In order to enhance the four pillars of BCJI, the IACP facilitated several webinars around topics such as implementation science, violence reduction in hot spots, and Action Plan guidance.

Using Data To Develop and Assess Collaborative Crime Reduction Strategies: Dr. Nick Corsaro, BCJI TTA partner from the University of Cincinnati, draws upon BCJI grantee site's experiences to show how data can be used to develop robust crime reduction strategies and enhance collaborative project partnerships. Click here to access the slides from the webinar. 

Strategies for Abating Nuisance Properties: Mark Manning is Chief Counsel for Quality of Life with the Law Department for the City of Cincinnati (Ohio) and supports the BCJI Fiscal Year 2018 Cincinnati grantee site’s Place Network Investigations of Violent Offender Territories (PIVOT) program in its efforts to combat nuisance properties in Cincinnati’s East Price Hill neighborhood. In this presentation, Mark draws upon his experience to discuss nuisance property abatement and how to work with property owners to address this prevalent issue that is often a component of crime reduction and neighborhood revitalization strategies. Click here to access the slides to this webinar.

Community Building Using 2nd Generation CPTED: Dr. Stacey Clouse from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, provides an overview and examples of how 2nd generation Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) techniques can be used for violence interruption, restorative justice, and non-justice involved community responses in areas where the environment tends to create crime opportunities. Concepts, such as social cohesion, community culture, connectivity, and threshold capacity, are explained to inform attendees of their value and on how to implement similar strategies in their own locality. 

Implementation Plan Guidance Webinar: The IACP, in partnership with the Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice, hosts this webinar to share important information about creating and submitting BCJI (formerly known as the CBCR program) implementation plans. The objectives of the Implementation Plan Guidance Webinar are to discuss the Implementation Plan Guidance Document; identify the steps for submitting an implementation plan; explain the implementation plan approval process; and answer questions regarding the implementation plan process. Click here to access the outline from the webinar.

You Can't Read the Label from Inside the Jar - 10 Disruptive Truth Bombs About Criminology, Implementation Science, and Real-World Organizational Change: Dr. Glenn Tapia provides the 'real talk' necessary to think critically about the truths, lies, twists, and real-world trials about criminology, implementation science, and organizational change. Attendees learn how to think beyond the conventional norms about how to effect real organizational change and are introduced to the 10 Essential Principles for Implementation Leadership, which are scientifically supported approaches to lead real-world change in criminal justice settings. Click here to access the slides from the webinar.

Deterring and Reducing Opportunities for Violence in Hot Spots: Dr. Tamara Herold from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, discusses how BCJI grantee sites can work with their partners to 1) describe or define their BCJI geographic focus area; 2) explore evidence-based strategies that could be used to reduce violence in the community based on the hot spot definition; and 3) explore a newly developed strategy called "place network investigations" that can help sites generate long-term, sustainable violence reduction in the BCJI sites. Click here to access the slides from the webinar.

Innovative Community Engagement Strategies for Community-Based Crime Reduction: In this webinar, Aqeela Sherrills, Senior Advisor at the Alliance for Safety and Justice and a consultant for the IACP, discusses innovative community engagement strategies based on his experience implementing community-based violence reduction strategies and his critical role in developing the successful Newark Community Street Team. Aqeela provides participants with a brief history and overview of community-based violence reduction efforts, as well as the innovative techniques utilized by the Newark Community Street Team, with a particular focus on how to reach communities in the time of COVID-19 and stay-at-home orders. Click here to access the slides from the webinar.

Principled Policing - Procedural Justice and Implicit Bias: In this webinar, Captain Scott Meadors (retired), from the Stockton, California, Police Department, discusses the four tenets of procedural justice: police legitimacy and community trust, focused intervention work, officer wellness, and implicit bias. He also covers implicit bias's impact on behavior. Click here to access the slides from the webinar.

Diagnosing and Addressing Criminal Justice Culture for the Purpose of Change and Implementation: In this webinar, Glenn A. Tapia, Director of Leadership and Organizational Intelligence at the Alliance for Community and Justice Innovation, discusses how BCJI sites can utilize the IDEATE™ framework to change their team's culture to focus on implementation. Click here to access the slides from the webinar.

How to Get the Most Out of Your Data-Sharing Partnerships: This webinar features Dr. Robin Engel, Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati (UC), Director of the IACP/UC Center for Police Research and Policy, and consultant with the BCJI project for the IACP. Dr. Engel reviews how BCJI sites can get the most out of their data-sharing partnerships and how practitioners can use data to promote long-term project sustainability. Click here to access the slides from the webinar.

Designing Out Crime and Creating Safe Spaces: In this webinar, IACP TTA partner, Dr. Tamara Herold explains how the built environment and place management practices can reduce crime opportunities and identify common conditions of criminogenic places. Dr. Herold also outlines several techniques that BCJI grantee sites can use to reduce crime and offers resources to help sites conduct place assessments and place-based interventions. Click here to access the slides from the webinar.

Mission Creep vs. Strategic Adaptations - BCJI: In this webinar, IACP TTA partner Dr. Nicholas Corsaro, from the University of Cincinnati, outlines how BCJI grantee sites should consider going about their crime prevention mission based on process and impact assessments from other successful BCJI sites. Click here to access the slides from webinar.

Library of Resources

The Library of Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Resources is now live. This library is a searchable database of resources related to innovative community-based crime reduction strategies. Included are a variety of in-person and online trainings, webinars, tools, articles, publications, and other resources to better inform crime reduction efforts. Resources are of no- to low-cost to law enforcement, community-led organizations, and researchers. Though targeted for these groups, these resources may also benefit multidisciplinary partners. New resources are continuously being added to the library.

Click here to access the Library of BCJI Resources.

This library/resource list is designed for reference purposes only. The IACP does not necessarily endorse, certify, recommend, or promote any particular resource within.

Contact

For more information, please email bcji@theiacp.org or 800-843-4227 ext. 323.

Project Partners

Project Support

This project is supported by Cooperative Agreement No. 15BJA-23-GK-04297-JAGP awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions contained herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, products, or services should not be considered an endorsement by the author(s) or the U.S. Department of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues.

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