FY24 COPS Hiring Program
Agency: Community Oriented Policing Services
Posted: 2024-04-11 | Closing date: 2024-06-06
Estimated total program funding: 156668839
Award ceiling: 6250000
Award floor: 0
Expected number of awards: 250
Cost sharing or matching requirement: Yes

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) is the component of the U.S. Department of Justice responsible for advancing the practice of community policing by the nation’s state, local, territorial, and tribal law enforcement agencies through information and grant resources. The COPS Office has been appropriated more than $20 billion to advance community policing, including grants awarded to more than 13,000 state, local, territorial, and tribal law enforcement agencies to fund the hiring and redeployment of more than 136,000 officers. COPS Office information resources, covering a wide range of community policing topics such as school and campus safety, violent crime, and officer safety and wellness, can be downloaded via the COPS Office’s home page, https://cops.usdoj.gov. The COPS Hiring Program (CHP) provides funding to law enforcement agencies to hire and/or rehire additional career law enforcement officers in an effort to increase their community policing capacity and crime prevention efforts. Anticipated outcomes of CHP awards include engagement in planned community partnerships, implementation of projects to analyze and assess problems, implementation of changes to personnel and agency management in support of community policing, and increased capacity of agency to engage in community policing activities. Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies that support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as violent crime, nonviolent crime, and fear of crime. To read an overview of the principles of community policing, please see the COPS Office publication Community Policing Defined. The COPS Office is committed to advancing work that promotes civil rights and 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 build trust between law enforcement and the community.

Eligibility: Local, state, territorial, and tribal law enforcement agencies that have primary law enforcement authority are eligible to apply. An agency with primary law enforcement authority is defined as the first responder to calls for service for all types of criminal incidents within the jurisdiction served. CHP applicants must have a law enforcement agency (i.e. Sheriff’s Office, Department, etc.) that is operational by the close of this application or receive services through a new or existing contract for law enforcement services through an existing contract for law enforcement services or a new contract for law enforcement services that is in place by the close of this solicitation. Applicants must also maintain primary law enforcement authority for the population to be served.  If funds under this program are to be used as part of a written contracting agreement for law enforcement services (e.g., a town that contracts with a neighboring sheriff’s department to receive services), the agency wishing to receive law enforcement services must be the legal applicant in this application.  A law enforcement agency is established and operational if the jurisdiction has passed authorizing legislation and it has a current operating budget.