COPS Hiring Program

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. Since inception, 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 necessary to prevent crime. 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...

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. 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.

General criteria for selecting proposals are set forth in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Public Law 103-322. Additional Criteria may be developed by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and will be published in the Notice of Funding Opportunity application materials.

A minimum 25 percent local cost share or matching funds is required, which must be in the form of cash, unless a waiver is approved.This program has MOE requirements, see funding agency for further details. Funding under this program will support three years of officer or deputy salaries within a five-year period of performance to accommodate time needed for recruitment and hiring. Agencies must retain each CHP-funded position for a minimum of 12 months following the three years of funding for that position. The additional officer positions should be added to your agency�s law enforcement budget with state and/or local funds over and above the number of locally funded officer positions that would have existed in the absence of the award. Absorbing CHP-funded positions through attrition (rather than adding the extra positions to your budget with additional funding) does not meet the...

Fiscal year 2024: The COPS Hiring Program (CHP) is designed to reduce crime and advance public safety through community policing by providing direct support to state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies nationwide. CHP funding supports the hiring of career law enforcement officers to increase an agency's community policing capacity and crime prevention efforts. The FY 2024 CHP award program was an open solicitation. All local, state, and tribal law enforcement agencies having primary law enforcement authority were eligible to apply. The award selection process was highly competitive and based on a variety of factors including problem focus area, local crime data, an agencies' commitment to community policing, an agencies' demonstrated financial need, and statutory formulas. The COPS Office received 573 CHP applications during the open solicitation period from law enforcement agencies in nearly every state and U.S. territory. After careful review of all applications, the COPS Office made FY 2024 CHP awards to 235 state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies totaling $157,155,896 to support the hiring of 1,193 full-time officers and deputies (of whom 91 are school...