Press Room

JAD Seeking Proposals for Community Engagement Grants

HARRIS COUNTY– (September 16, 2021) – The Justice Administration Department (JAD) is seeking proposals from qualifying organizations for Community Engagement grants. The grants will provide funding for direct services that are preventative interventions to incarceration and provide support to justice-involved individuals, youth, and survivors of crime. The Community Engagement grants focus on investing funds in community-based responses to: crime prevention, mitigating nonappearances to court, and decreasing recidivism by providing support to those that are justice-involved.

Initiatives funded will support JAD’s effort to reduce racial and ethnic disparities within the criminal justice system, reduce court nonappearance for misdemeanor offenses, improve public safety in the county, and decrease engagement with the county jails. Community Engagement grants: Administered by JAD, this program will further the goals of Harris County’s participation in the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) as well as the requirements of the ODonnell Consent Decree.

Each grant must promote one or more of the following objectives: 1) preventing involvement in violent or criminal activity as either a perpetrator or victim among those who are at risk, 2) diverting youth or adults from formal system involvement at the pre-arrest, arrest, or earliest stage possible, 3) reducing the risk of reentry or re-involvement in the criminal justice system 4) contributing to community healing through restorative justice practices and 5) providing supportive services to mitigate causes of nonappearance (outlined in RFP document).

The Community Engagement grants recipient(s) shall provide all necessary labor and materials to assist JAD with engaging the community. This includes supporting organizations that directly serve justice involved individuals, implementing preventative violence programming to at-risk populations, and /or supporting victims and community healing or restorative justice. The grant awards will cover a period of time beginning on or about November 1, 2021, and continuing one (1) year after that.

To learn more about the Community Engagement grants, a pre-proposal conference is scheduled for September 20, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. CST local time in Houston, TX using the following dial-in information. Conference number (281) 985-1862, meeting number (access code): 455493597#. Attendance is optional and organizations are encouraged to attend to have a better understanding of the requirements of the application process.

To learn more, click here to access the solicitation reference number 21/0291.