Every day, public safety officers risk their lives to protect America’s citizens and communities. To honor that commitment, Congress passed the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor Act of 2001, which created the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor, the highest national award for valor by a public safety officer.

Federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement officers, firefighters, and emergency service officers perform brave and selfless acts every day in the line of duty.  The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) has opened the nomination period for the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor to recognize these public safety officers for their valiant actions.  An act of valor is defined as going above and beyond the call of duty and exhibiting exceptional courage, extraordinary decisiveness and presence of mind, and unusual swiftness of action, regardless of his or her personal safety, in an attempt to save or protect human life.

Nominations must be submitted through the Medal of Valor page by or at the direction of the chief executive officer of the nominee’s employing public safety agency.  Nominations are due by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on July 31, 2018.  Agencies may nominate multiple public safety officers for the same incident, and individual officers can be nominated for multiple incidents. Please note that separate online nominations must be submitted for each incident and for each officer who participated in the incident.  For questions about the nomination process or submission, please contact MedalOfValor@usdoj.gov or visit the FAQ page.

The Destination Zero (DZ) Program, a Bureau of Justice Assistance program and collaborative effort between the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and the VALOR Officer Safety and Wellness Program, is designed to assist law enforcement agencies in improving the health and safety of their officers across the United States.  The DZ Program is proud to recognize officer safety and officer wellness programs that proactively engage employees in initiatives that increase overall officer wellness and/or reduce line-of-duty injuries or deaths.

The 2018 Destination Zero Conference: Saluting Innovative Officer Safety and Wellness Programs will be held August 2–3, 2018, in Phoenix, Arizona.  This year’s conference will highlight previous DZ award winners and finalists from the following categories: general officer safety, officer traffic safety, officer wellness, and comprehensive safety.

Attendance at the DZ Conference is limited to law enforcement personnel. Agency identification will be required at registration check-in.

The vision for the NIBRS is to become the law enforcement community’s standard for quantifying crime, further supporting the mission of the FBI’s UCR Program to generate reliable information for use in law enforcement administration, operation, and management.

The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) was implemented to improve the overall quality of crime data collected by law enforcement.  NIBRS captures details on each single crime incident—as well as on separate offenses within the same incident—including information on victims, known offenders, relationships between victims and offenders, arrestees, and property involved in the crimes.

Unlike data reported through Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program’s traditional Summary Reporting System—an aggregate monthly tally of crimes—the NIBRS data goes much deeper because of its ability to provide circumstances and context for crimes. It includes reporting up to ten offenses within a single incident and additional aspects about each event, like location, time of day, and whether the incident was cleared. Ultimately, NIBRS will improve the detail and overall quality of crime data, which will help law enforcement and communities around the country use resources more strategically and effectively.  The following articles outline many of the advantages of the transition:  Summary Reporting System to NIBRS: The Path to Better UCR Data and Questions NIBRS Can Answer.

The UCR Program is actively working to increase NIBRS participation by partnering with the Bureau of Justice Statistics on the National Crime Statistics Exchange, working with advocacy groups to emphasize the importance of NIBRS data for the public and the law enforcement community, and transitioning the UCR program to a NIBRS-only data collection by January 2021.  The FBI has documented the efforts of two states, Minnesota and Georgia, as they to work to achieve their transitions to NIBRS.  For more information about the NIBRS transition, contact the NIBRS staff of the FBI’s UCR Program via telephone at (304) 625-9999 or email at UCR-NIBRS@fbi.gov.

Cyberthreats pose serious risks to the core interests of states and territories. In recent years, an endless series of cyberattacks has demonstrated how the integration of computing into all aspects of business, government, and personal life exposes data to theft and critical services to disruption.

On June 4, 2018, the National Governors Association (NGA) Resource Center for State Cybersecurity announced that it will help four states—Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, and Wisconsin—modernize their cybersecurity plans and infrastructure. The new initiative, Policy Academy on Implementing State Cybersecurity, offers states a new opportunity to defend themselves against increasingly advanced and globalized cyberthreats. 

The NGA will provide states with technical assistance to implement and operationalize cybersecurity planning. The Policy Academy will convene the NGA, industry experts, federal officials, private sector experts, research organizations, and academia to advise the four state teams, each selected by its governor to develop and share best practices in cybersecurity. 

Those who are interested in learning more about the NGA should contact Jeff McLeod, Director, Homeland Security and Public Safety Division, NGA Center for Best Practices, at jmcleod@nga.org or (202) 624-5311.

On June 7, 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the U.S. Department of Justice’s first grants under the Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing School Violence Act of 2018 (STOP School Violence Act of 2018) at the 24th Annual Joint Conference of the Montana Association of Chiefs of Police and the 88th Annual Montana Police Protective Association. 

The STOP School Violence Act of 2018 appropriated funds for both the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Office to improve school safety programs. 

BJA was appropriated $50 million dollars as part of this Act and has two solicitations that are currently available for states, units of local government, and federally recognized Indian tribes.

Up to $25 million is available through this year’s COPS School Violence Prevention Program (SVPP).