Summary

Creates a Justice Department grant program to help local partnerships plan and carry out projects that reduce the number of people jailed and the number of jail days they serve. Grants fund planning, data collection and analysis, changes to pretrial practices (like reducing cash bail and expanding pretrial services), diversion programs, faster case processing, and other activities tied to measurable jail-reduction goals. Grantees must use data, set and meet multi-year incarceration-reduction targets, measure and reduce racial and ethnic disparities, hire independent evaluators, and reinvest savings into community services. The bill authorizes annual funding for planning and implementation grants for FY2026–2030 and reserves a portion of implementation dollars for evaluation work.

Key Points

• Creates DOJ/BJA grants to help local jurisdictions plan and implement projects that reduce jail populations and total jail-days.
• Funds two grant types: planning grants (≤ $100,000, 1 year) and implementation grants (up to 6 years; $500K–$3M initial year).
• Requires five years of disaggregated incarceration and arrest data or a clear plan to obtain it within year one of an award.
• Implementation grantees must set measurable incarceration-reduction targets, track racial/ethnic disparities, hire external evaluators, and reinvest savings into community services.
• BJA audits grantees that miss targets; repeated failures can lead to award termination.
• Prioritizes jurisdictions with high or rising incarceration and discourages use of funds to expand jail capacity.
• Authorizes $20M/year for planning grants and $100M/year for implementation grants for FY2026–2030; 10% of implementation funds must be reserved for evaluation.
• Final (sixth) year of implementation awards is for evaluation and reporting only and funds remain available until spent.

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