FY 2023 Survey of Prison Inmates Research and Development | O BJS 2023 171796

Opportunity Information: Apply for O BJS 2023 171796

The FY 2023 Survey of Prison Inmates Research and Development (SPIRD) opportunity is a Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) cooperative agreement from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs (OJP), focused on modernizing a core national data collection effort: the Survey of Prison Inmates (SPI). The project is designed to refresh the SPI survey instrument so it better reflects current correctional realities and policy needs, to conduct a field test of the revised instrument, and to produce a practical national implementation plan for administering the next full SPI. The larger policy context emphasized in the solicitation is OJP's commitment to work that advances civil rights and racial equity, increases access to justice, supports victims and people impacted by the justice system, strengthens community safety, protects the public from evolving threats, and builds trust between law enforcement and communities. In other words, the grant is not about running a one-off study; it is about rebuilding the tools and plans needed for a high-quality national inmate survey that can support equity-focused, evidence-based justice policy.

At its core, the SPIRD project is a research-and-development effort. The main deliverables revolve around instrument redevelopment (updating questions, definitions, and structure), pilot or field testing (trying the revised instrument in real-world prison settings to see what works and what fails), and implementation planning (laying out how the next national SPI should be executed, including operations, sampling, logistics, and data quality protections). Because the funding instrument is a cooperative agreement, BJS expects to be actively involved during the project rather than simply issuing funds and receiving a final report. That typically means close coordination with BJS on methodological decisions, testing protocols, revisions to the instrument, and the final plan for national rollout. The activity category is "Information and Statistics," which signals that the emphasis is on building a reliable statistical data collection capability rather than, for example, direct services or program operations.

The award is structured as a single expected award (ExpectedAwards: 1) with an award ceiling of $2,000,000. The opportunity is discretionary, meaning proposals are competitively reviewed and funded at the agency's discretion. The solicitation was created on June 21, 2023, with an original closing date of August 21, 2023. The program is associated with CFDA number 16.734, which corresponds to BJS statistical programs. Taken together, those details point to a fairly substantial, specialized project intended to be led by an organization with strong survey methods capacity, experience working in correctional environments, and the ability to translate testing results into a realistic, scalable plan for a nationwide implementation.

Eligibility is broad and includes public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, private institutions of higher education, nonprofit organizations (both with and without 501(c)(3) status), for-profit organizations (other than small businesses), and small businesses. This wide eligibility suggests BJS is open to a range of capable applicants, such as university survey research centers, nonprofit research institutes, and specialized survey or data-collection firms, as long as they can demonstrate the technical competence and operational readiness needed for prison-based survey research and instrument development. The opportunity number is O-BJS-2023-171796, and the funding opportunity title is FY 2023 Survey of Prison Inmates Research and Development, which applicants would use to locate and reference the solicitation in official submissions and correspondence.

In practical terms, a successful SPIRD project would likely involve reviewing the current SPI instrument, identifying gaps related to evolving issues in prisons and justice policy, revising and cognitively testing questions to ensure they are understandable and valid for incarcerated respondents, and then field testing under real prison conditions to assess response patterns, item nonresponse, interview length, sensitivity concerns, and feasibility. The national implementation plan deliverable implies the recipient must move beyond the test itself and provide a credible roadmap for a full national SPI, including recommended sampling approaches, procedures for facility recruitment and coordination, interviewer training and safety protocols, privacy and confidentiality protections, data management standards, quality assurance steps, and a timeline and budget framework that BJS could use to launch the next survey iteration. Overall, the opportunity is aimed at strengthening the foundation for one of the justice system's key inmate data collections so that future national statistics are more current, rigorous, and useful for policy decisions tied to equity, safety, and public trust.

• The Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics in the information and statistics sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "FY 2023 Survey of Prison Inmates Research and Development" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 16.734.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jun 21, 2023.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 21, 2023. (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.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, 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.

Apply for O BJS 2023 171796

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