I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 2669
To establish a new Justice Department grant program to reduce the number
of individuals incarcerated in local jails, reduce the number of days
individuals are incarcerated in local jails, and support community-led
local justice reinvestment.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
APRIL7, 2025
Mr. B
ELL(for himself, Mr. CLEAVER, Ms. CLARKEof New York, Mr. FIG-
URES, Mrs. MCIVER, Mr. JACKSONof Illinois, Mr. BISHOP, Mr. THOMP-
SONof Mississippi, Mr. THANEDAR, Mr. JOHNSONof Georgia, Mr. IVEY,
Ms. N
ORTON, Ms. ANSARI, Ms. CROCKETT, and Ms. WILSONof Florida)
introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary
A BILL
To establish a new Justice Department grant program to
reduce the number of individuals incarcerated in local
jails, reduce the number of days individuals are incarcer-
ated in local jails, and support community-led local jus-
tice reinvestment.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Community First Pre-4
trial Reform Act’’ or the ‘‘Community First Act’’. 5
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SEC. 2. GRANTS AUTHORIZED. 1
(a) G
RANTSAUTHORIZED.—The Attorney General, 2
acting through the Bureau of Justice Assistance, shall 3
make grants to eligible partnerships for purposes of reduc-4
ing the number of individuals in jails operated by units 5
of local government and the number of days such individ-6
uals spend in jail as follows: 7
(1) Grants for analysis and planning, which 8
shall be used to— 9
(A) collect and analyze local criminal jus-10
tice and incarceration data, including data on 11
equity disparities; and 12
(B) develop a strategic, collaborative plan 13
to decrease local jail incarceration that shall be 14
public facing. 15
(2) Grants for implementation of the plan de-16
scribed in paragraph (1)(B) and which may be used 17
for activities to reduce the number of individuals in-18
carcerated in local jails and to reduce the number of 19
days that individuals are so incarcerated including— 20
(A) reducing the use of cash bail; 21
(B) reducing revocations of conditional re-22
lease; 23
(C) creating or increasing the availability 24
of pretrial services, including efforts undertaken 25
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in collaboration with community-based organi-1
zations and nonprofits; 2
(D) investing in case processing and proc-3
esses to reduce overall time to disposition and 4
time between court events; 5
(E) ensuring early assignment of counsel 6
and presence of counsel at individuals’ first 7
court appearance or bail hearing; 8
(F) providing training to various actors 9
within the criminal justice system on indigent 10
defense that is aligned with best practices in 11
the field; 12
(G) creating or expanding diversion pro-13
grams that do not require an individual to enter 14
into a guilty plea and do not use incarceration 15
as a sanction for noncompliance— 16
(i) at the pre-arrest phase; 17
(ii) at the pre-booking phase; and 18
(iii) at the post-booking phase; or 19
(H) any other emerging, promising, or evi-20
dence-based practices that an eligible partner-21
ship proposes and the Attorney General deems 22
likely to reduce local jail incarceration. 23
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(b) ELIGIBLEPARTNERSHIP.—An eligible partner-1
ship is a partnership between not less than two of the fol-2
lowing: 3
(1) A unit of local government. 4
(2) A territory. 5
(3) An Indian tribe. 6
(4) A nonprofit organization. 7
(c) A
PPLICATION.—An application for a grant shall 8
include the following: 9
(1) Details of the range of pretrial services 10
available within the jurisdiction where the jail being 11
targeted for incarceration rate reduction under this 12
Act is located. 13
(2) A plan to ensure that individuals in pretrial 14
contact with the justice system will be subject to the 15
least restrictive conditions or combination of condi-16
tions necessary to reasonably address the imminent 17
risk of willful flight or the risk of imminent threat 18
of serious physical harm to a reasonably identifiable 19
person. 20
(3) A plan for ongoing process evaluation and 21
outcome evaluation. 22
(4) Either— 23
(A) data— 24
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(i) disaggregated by key demographic 1
indicators, including factors such as com-2
munity background and identity, on incar-3
ceration for correctional facilities within 4
the local jurisdiction for each of the last 5
five calendar years that includes—— 6
(I) the average daily population; 7
(II) the percentage of individuals 8
held pretrial and post-conviction; and 9
(III) the average length of stay 10
for individuals held pretrial and post- 11
conviction; and 12
(ii) disaggregated by key demographic 13
indicators on arrests made by all law en-14
forcement entities operating within the 15
local jurisdiction over each of the last five 16
calendar years; or 17
(B) in the event that elements of such in-18
carceration or arrest data are not able to be 19
compiled and reported, a comprehensive plan to 20
obtain as much of the unavailable data as pos-21
sible within the first year of the award. 22
SEC. 3. REQUIREMENTS. 23
(a) I
NGENERAL.—Grantees shall— 24
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(1) consult in all phases of planning, implemen-1
tation, and evaluation with municipal, county, and 2
State law enforcement agencies, courts in the local 3
jurisdiction, public defense organizations and crimi-4
nal defense practitioners in the local jurisdiction, 5
local substance use and mental health authorities, 6
local community members, local community members 7
who have been justice-involved, and community- 8
based organizations and service providers; 9
(2) analyze local jail incarceration and arrest 10
data to identify the drivers of jail incarceration and 11
equity disparities and ground jail population reduc-12
tion strategies in that data; 13
(3) reduce incarceration rates by no less than 14
5 percent the first year of an implementation grant, 15
10 percent in each subsequent year, and 50 percent 16
by the end of the grant period; 17
(4) in consultation with the Bureau of Justice 18
Assistance— 19
(A) adopt and implement a methodology 20
for measuring equity disparities in jail incarcer-21
ation; 22
(B) set goals for the reduction of equity 23
jail incarceration disparities; and 24
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(C) decrease levels of incarceration across 1
all races and ethnicities; 2
(5) engage an external evaluator to coordinate 3
data collection and reporting in an ongoing fashion 4
and perform both a process and outcome evaluation, 5
with support from the Bureau of Justice Assistance; 6
and 7
(6) use financial savings created through de-8
creased incarceration to sustain programmatic and 9
community-based efforts to reduce jail incarceration. 10
(b) G
RANTOVERSIGHTREQUIREMENT.— 11
(1) I
N GENERAL.—If a grantee fails to meet 12
the incarceration rate and equity disparities reduc-13
tion requirements under subsection (a)(3) in any 14
year of the award, the Bureau of Justice Assistance 15
shall perform an audit of the use of their award and 16
the grantee shall implement new strategies based on 17
that audit. If a grantee fails to meet the incarcer-18
ation rate and equity disparities reduction require-19
ments under subsection (a)(3) in any two consecu-20
tive years of the award, the Attorney General shall 21
terminate the award. 22
(2) M
ODIFICATION AUTHORITY .—The Bureau 23
of Justice Assistance may grant a modification to 24
the incarceration rate reduction requirement under 25
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subsection (a)(3) if the Bureau determines after an 1
audit that the failure to meet the incarceration rate 2
reduction requirement was caused by an increase in 3
population in the covered jurisdiction. If a grantee 4
fails to meet the modified reduction requirements in 5
any two subsequent years of the award, the Attorney 6
General shall terminate the award. 7
SEC. 4. GRANT AMOUNTS. 8
(a) P
LANNINGGRANTS.—A grant under section 9
2(a)(1) may be for not more than $100,000 for a single 10
grantee, and shall be for a term of 1 year. 11
(b) I
MPLEMENTATION GRANTS.—A grant under sec-12
tion 2(a)(2) shall be for a term of 6 years, and shall be 13
structured as follows: 14
(1) For the first year of the grant term, an 15
amount shall be disbursed that is to be not less than 16
$500,000 and not more than $3,000,000, contingent 17
upon acceptance of a grantee’s proposed budget for 18
activities under the grant, which may be subject to 19
revision during the award process. 20
(2) Award amounts shall decrease annually 21
by— 22
(A) 10 percent in the second year; 23
(B) 15 percent in the third year; 24
(C) 20 percent in the fourth year; and 25
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(D) 25 percent in the fifth year. 1
(3) Award amounts during the sixth year of the 2
award may not be used for programmatic activities 3
and shall support only program evaluation and the 4
drafting of a final report, and such funds shall be 5
available to the grantees until expended. 6
SEC. 5. SELECTION PRIORITY. 7
In selecting grantees, the Attorney General shall— 8
(1) give priority to applicants from jurisdictions 9
with the highest incarceration rates that are not al-10
ready in decline and whose applications contain the 11
most ambitious and attainable plans for reducing 12
that rate; 13
(2) give additional priority to applicants from 14
jurisdictions seeking to use funds under this Act to 15
prevent the local government from expanding the 16
number of beds in local correctional facilities; 17
(3) for any year in which there will only be one 18
new or ongoing award, ensure that a small metro-19
politan, micropolitan, or noncore area is the recipi-20
ent of the award; 21
(4) for any year in which there will be more 22
than one new or ongoing award, ensure that small 23
metropolitan, micropolitan, or noncore areas are the 24
recipients of at least two awards; and 25
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(5) for any year in which there will be three or 1
more new or ongoing awards, ensure that no more 2
than one large central metropolitan area is a recipi-3
ent of an award. 4
SEC. 6. DEFINITIONS. 5
In this Act: 6
(1) The term ‘‘conditional release’’ means pro-7
bation, parole, supervised release, home confinement, 8
community supervision, and other practices under 9
which an individual is supervised in the community 10
by the criminal justice system and may be incarcer-11
ated if found in violation of the conditions of their 12
release. 13
(2) The term ‘‘diversion’’ means a program or 14
practice that— 15
(A) places individuals who come into con-16
tact with the criminal justice system into alter-17
native processes outside the standard scope of 18
criminal justice processing; and 19
(B) reduces an individual’s involvement in 20
the criminal justice system in both the short 21
and long term. 22
(3) The term ‘‘emerging practice’’ means a pro-23
gram or practice— 24
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(A) with initial implementation resulting in 1
decreased local jail incarceration in one or more 2
communities; and 3
(B) that will be evaluated through a well- 4
designed and rigorous study. 5
(4) The term ‘‘evidence-based practice’’ means 6
a program or practice that— 7
(A) is demonstrated to be effective when 8
implemented with fidelity; 9
(B) is based on a clearly articulated and 10
empirically supported theory; 11
(C) has measurable outcomes relevant to 12
reducing jail incarceration, including a detailed 13
description of the outcomes produced in a par-14
ticular population, whether urban or rural; and 15
(D) has been scientifically tested and prov-16
en effective through randomized control studies 17
or comparison group studies and with the abil-18
ity to replicate and scale. 19
(5) The term ‘‘micropolitan area’’ has the 20
meaning established under the Centers for Disease 21
Control and Prevention’s (hereinafter in this Act re-22
ferred to as the ‘‘CDC’’) National Center for Health 23
Statistics Urban-Rural Classification Scheme for 24
Counties. 25
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(6) The term ‘‘small metropolitan area’’ has the 1
meaning established under the CDC’s National Cen-2
ter for Health Statistics Urban-Rural Classification 3
Scheme for Counties. 4
(7) The term ‘‘noncore areas’’ has the meaning 5
established under the CDC’s National Center for 6
Health Statistics Urban-Rural Classification Scheme 7
for Counties. 8
(8) The term ‘‘post-booking diversion’’ means a 9
program or practice that diverts individuals from 10
formal criminal justice system processing after for-11
mal intake processing into jail. 12
(9) The term ‘‘pre-booking diversion’’ means a 13
program or practice that diverts individuals from 14
formal criminal justice system processing prior to 15
arrest or prior to formal intake processing into jail. 16
(10) The term ‘‘promising practice’’ means a 17
program or practice that— 18
(A) is demonstrated to be effective based 19
on positive outcomes relevant to reducing jail 20
incarceration from one or more objective, inde-21
pendent, and scientifically valid evaluations, as 22
documented in writing to the Attorney General; 23
and 24
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(B) will be evaluated through a well-de-1
signed and rigorous study. 2
(11) The term ‘‘equity disparities’’ means an 3
measurable differences in outcomes, treatment, or 4
access to services within the criminal justice system 5
that are correlated with demographic factors such 6
community background and identity. 7
SEC. 7. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS. 8
There are authorized to be appropriated— 9
(1) $20,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2026 10
through 2030 for planning grants; and 11
(2) $100,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2026 12
through 2030 for implementation grants, of which 13
10 percent of any appropriated amount is reserved 14
specifically for evaluation activities. 15
Æ
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