Acting AAG Cohen Shares Vision, Affirms Priorities with State Agencies and National CVI Leaders
On Monday Acting Assistant Attorney General Brent J. Cohen met with representatives of state grant administering agencies at the 2024 Forum on Criminal Justice, hosted by the National Criminal Justice Association, and later in the day convened a roundtable of community violence intervention leaders from across the country at the Department of Justice.
The NCJA event was an opportunity for Acting AAG Cohen to highlight the Office of Justice Program’s policy blueprint, which focuses OJP’s mission around advancing community safety, building community trust and strengthening the community’s role as co-producer of safety and justice.
“We’re seeing encouraging signs of this approach in action across the country. Thanks in great part to our state, local, and Tribal partners, communities are implementing public safety strategies that tap into the expertise of CBOs, health professionals and people with lived experience and credibility in the communities they serve,” Acting AAG Cohen said.
The forum convened members of state and territorial criminal justice planning agencies, which administer over $2 billion in federal grant funds, including the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant Program, the Byrne State Crisis Intervention Program, STOP Violence Against Women funding and Victims of Crime Act programs. Also among the attendees were the state administrators of the federal Residential Substance Abuse Treatment grant program, which supports treatment programs in jails and prisons.
Bureau of Justice Assistance Director Karhlton F. Moore, Senior Advisor for Community Violence Intervention Eddie Bocanegra and staff from BJA, the Office for Victims of Crime and the Office for Civil Rights also spoke at the event.
Later in the day, Acting AAG Cohen, BJA Director Moore, Senior Advisor Bocanegra and other representatives of BJA, OVC, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the National Institute of Justice and the Office of the Assistant Attorney General met with the second cohort of the University of Chicago Crime Lab’s Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy. The Academy is an executive education program providing hands-on training for CVI leaders from across America.
At the roundtable, Acting AAG Cohen reaffirmed OJP’s deep commitment to supporting CVI efforts, which comprise a key pillar of the Department of Justice’s Comprehensive Strategy for Reducing Violent Crime. He noted that over the last two years, OJP has made a historic investment of nearly $200 million in CVI strategies through the Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative, funded in part through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Earlier this year, Cohen joined former AAG Amy L. Solomon for a roundtable with the first cohort of CVI Leadership Academy graduates during White House Community Violence Awareness Week.
OJP will be announcing a new round of CVIPI grant awards this fall.