OVC FY 2021 Fostering Resilience and Hope: Bridging the Gap Between Law Enforcement and the Community

The Department of Justice is committed to advancing work that promotes civil rights, increases access to justice, supports crime victims, protects the public from crime and evolving threats, and builds trust between law enforcement and the community. This program will support demonstration sites in implementing a hope-centered framework to 1) address trauma experienced by law enforcement and 2) build trust with the communities they serve. Collective hope is a "shared desire for a better society articulated through a broad set of agreed upon goals and principles and elaborated through socially inclusive dialogue," (Braithwaite V. Collective Hope. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 2004;592(1):6-15. doi:10.1177/0002716203262049). This initiative will increase training, capacity, advocacy, outreach around Hope Theory as an organizing framework in order to repair and rebuild trusted relationships between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Ultimately, this work is intended to result in increased trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve, enhancing law enforcement officers’ ability to effectively engage with community members, as well as increasing the likelihood that the community will assist in investigations to make communities safer and hold offenders accountable, and make it more likely that crime victims will report their victimizations to the police, reducing the likelihood of re-victimization. Under this program, OVC will augment OVC-funded work done by the Healing Justice Alliance Initiative, which explored demonstrated strategies for implementing a trauma-informed and collaborative approach to build trust between communities of color and law enforcement agencies. Informed by young men of color who are survivors of violence, the project’s outcomes improved lives, by pointing to ways to manage trauma, and focusing on changing community conditions that produce trauma.