Bureau of Justice Assistance's Smart Prosecution initiative solicits grant applications.

• Author: Ball, Kim

PROSECUTORS ARE KEY DECISION-MAKERS and policy-makers in the criminal justice system. They represent the community, strive to control crime, and ensure that justice prevails. The local prosecutor ensures that justice is done in a fair, effective and efficient manner, and is focused on three goals: to promote the fair, impartial, and expeditious pursuit of justice, ensure safer communities, and promote integrity in the prosecution profession and effective coordination in the criminal justice system. (1)

As prosecutors begin to use innovative, best practice or evidenced-based approaches to address the goals listed above, there is a need to research and evaluate those efforts. Recognizing this need, the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) established the Smart Prosecution initiative in 2014. This initiative provides grants to encourage exploration of new solutions to public safety concerns, while employing a research partner at the problem definition stage through assessment of strategies and solutions.

Creative solutions developed by prosecutors around the country range from minor changes in how their organizations prioritize cases, like using zone/geographic prosecution, to more complex approaches, including:

* gun reduction programs

* nuisance abatement

* crime prevention through environmental design

* drug-free and prostitute-free zones

* restorative justice

* community courts

* truancy abatement

* diversion programs

* graffiti cleanup to improve neighborhood safety

Prosecutors build partnerships by bringing together the police, the community, and other criminal justice and local agencies to find ways they can work together to solve problems in their jurisdictions.

BJA's Smart Prosecution initiative will develop a body of knowledge about data-driven strategies as they are implemented by prosecutors. The Smart Prosecution model builds off of the lessons learned from BJA's "Smart Suite" of crime-fighting programs. The Smart Prosecution initiative is one component of BJA's Smart Suite that includes Smart Pretrial, Smart Policing and Smart Supervision. The Smart Prosecution grants will pair an operational, results-focused researcher with a prosecutor's office to develop data-driven solutions that will ultimately improve public safety. It will provide other valuable resources to equip a prosecutor's office to access data across various criminal justice and non-criminal justice information systems to improve results for communities. The lessons...