NIJ FY23 Research and Evaluation on Jails | O NIJ 2023 171613

Opportunity Information: Apply for O NIJ 2023 171613

The NIJ FY23 Research and Evaluation on Jails opportunity is a discretionary grant from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), under the Office of Justice Programs (OJP), focused on building stronger empirical evidence about how local jail systems operate and how they affect incarcerated people, staff, families, and communities. The underlying purpose is practical: NIJ wants rigorous research that can directly inform policies and day-to-day practices in jails in ways that improve outcomes, reduce harm, and strengthen public trust. The solicitation is framed within OJP priorities that emphasize civil rights and racial equity, improved access to justice, support for victims and people impacted by the justice system, community safety, and responsiveness to evolving threats.

NIJ is looking for proposals that examine essentially any aspect of jail systems, from core operational practices to broader system impacts. Within that broad scope, the solicitation highlights several key priority areas. One is research that can improve reentry outcomes for people who cycle through jails, which often involves short stays, frequent turnover, and complicated transitions back to the community. Another is research aimed at minimizing the negative ripple effects of jail incarceration on families and communities, recognizing that incarceration can destabilize households, employment, housing, and community wellbeing. A third priority area is workforce development for jail personnel, including recruitment, retention, training, wellness, safety, and professionalization, all of which can affect both working conditions and conditions of confinement. A fourth priority is enhancing jail operations and practices more generally, meaning studies that test, evaluate, or rigorously assess operational strategies, programs, management approaches, and other practices that shape outcomes for staff and incarcerated individuals.

A major theme of the solicitation is meaningful engagement with people who have lived experience related to the subject being studied. NIJ signals that proposals will receive special consideration when the research design includes authentic involvement from those most directly affected, such as jail and justice practitioners, community members, crime victims, service providers, and people who have experienced justice system involvement. In practice, this points applicants toward approaches like participatory research methods, advisory boards, co-design of research questions and instruments, qualitative components that elevate stakeholder perspectives, and dissemination plans that return findings to impacted communities in usable forms. NIJ also encourages multidisciplinary teams, implying that strong proposals may combine complementary methods and expertise such as criminology, public health, sociology, psychology, economics, organizational behavior, implementation science, data science, and legal or policy analysis.

Equity measurement is also built into the expectations. NIJ wants applicants to consider and measure diversity, discrimination, and bias issues where applicable, across factors such as age, gender and gender identity, race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. That emphasis suggests that competitive proposals will not treat equity as a general statement of values, but will integrate it into research questions, sampling strategies, measures, analytic plans, and interpretation of results, especially when disparities in jail experiences and outcomes are plausible.

For projects that involve partnerships with criminal justice agencies or other organizations, the solicitation lays out specific documentation and data responsibilities. Applications should include letters of support from decision-making authorities at each partnering agency. Those letters should explicitly acknowledge that de-identified data derived from, provided to, or obtained through an NIJ-funded award will be archived with the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) at the end of the project. NIJ encourages applicants and partners to review its data archiving guidance early so there are no surprises later. If selected for funding, grantees are expected to have a formal agreement in place with partnering agencies by January 1, 2024, and that agreement must include language ensuring the project will meet the data archiving requirements. The solicitation also clarifies how multi-agency projects should be structured financially: only one entity can submit the application as the applicant, while other participating entities must be included as subrecipients if they will use federal funds to carry out project work. NIJ also states that the applicant should conduct the majority of the work proposed, reinforcing that the lead organization must truly lead execution rather than serving as a pass-through.

Another distinguishing feature is the emphasis on dissemination that actually drives change. NIJ is not only asking for academic publications; it is asking for robust, creative, multi-pronged dissemination strategies that are designed to move findings into policy and practice. The solicitation explicitly encourages strategic partnerships with organizations and associations that are well positioned to translate research into operational or policy reforms. Proposals may receive special consideration if they allocate at least 15 percent of the requested project budget to these dissemination strategies, and applicants are expected to demonstrate that commitment clearly in the budget worksheet and narrative. This creates a strong incentive for applicants to plan for practitioner-facing products, training and technical assistance materials, briefings, toolkits, implementation guides, practitioner webinars, conference outreach, and sustained stakeholder engagement that continues after results are produced.

In terms of basic grant mechanics, the opportunity is a research-focused grant (Science and Technology and other Research and Development) under CFDA 16.560. The funding opportunity number is O-NIJ-2023-171613, and it was posted with an original closing date of May 4, 2023. The award ceiling is listed at $2,000,000. Eligibility is broad and includes state, county, and local governments; tribal governments and tribal organizations; public housing authorities; public and private institutions of higher education; nonprofit organizations (both 501(c)(3) and non-501(c)(3)); and for-profit organizations (including small businesses). Overall, NIJ is signaling that it wants strong, methodologically rigorous jail research that is grounded in real-world partnerships, attentive to equity and lived experience, committed to data archiving for public benefit, and designed from the start to produce findings that can be implemented in jails and local justice systems.

• The National Institute of Justice in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "NIJ FY23 Research and Evaluation on Jails" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 16.560.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2023-02-17.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2023-05-04. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $2,000,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, 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, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Unrestricted.

Apply for O NIJ 2023 171613

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