Establish the violent crime reduction grant program

As Introduced

136th
General Assembly

Regular
Session
S. B. No. 425

2025-2026

Senator Manning

To
enact section 5502.72 of the Revised Code
to
establish the violent crime reduction grant program.

BE
IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF OHIO:

Section
1.
That
section 5502.72 of the Revised Code be enacted to read as follows:

Sec.
5502.72.
(A)
As used in this section:

(1)
"Division of criminal justice services" means the division
of criminal justice services of the department of public safety,
created by section 5502.62 of the Revised Code.

(2)
"Eligible applicant" means a police department of a
municipal corporation or a county sheriff's office. An eligible
applicant may join with one or more other eligible applicants to
submit a joint application.

(3)
"Violent crime" means offenses categorized as violent in
the national incident-based reporting system operated by the federal
bureau of investigation and may include nonfatal firearm offenses and
other violent offenses as specified in rules adopted under division
(G) of this section.

(4)
"Promising or proven strategy" means a strategy identified
in peer-reviewed research, federal guidance, or another credible
evaluation as likely to reduce violent crimes, including those
designated by the division of criminal justice services in rules
adopted under division (G) of this section.

(5)
"Clearance by exception" or "cleared by exceptional
means" means the law enforcement agency to which a violent crime
was reported has done all of the following:

(a)
Clearly and definitively established the identity of one or more
individuals suspected of commission of the violent crime;

(b)
Obtained sufficient probable cause to arrest the individual or
individuals suspected of commission of the violent crime;

(c)
Obtained sufficient information to effectuate the arrest of the
individual or individuals suspected of commission of the violent
crime, but a reason outside the control of the law enforcement agency
exists that prevents the law enforcement agency from arresting the
individual or individuals.

(6)
"Clearance by arrest" or "cleared by arrest"
means an individual was arrested and charged with committing the
violent crime or alleged to be a delinquent child for committing the
violent crime.

(7)
"Clearance rate" means the quotient obtained by dividing
the sum of the number of incidents of violent crime that have a
clearance by arrest and the number of incidents of violent crime that
have a clearance by exception by the total number of incidents of
violent crime reported to the law enforcement agency during a single
calendar year.

(8)
"Clearance rate improvement project" means a project, the
primary purpose of which is to increase clearance rates for violent
crimes, including the following:

(a)
Investigative staffing and overtime dedicated to clearing violent
crimes;

(b)
Information acquired and entered into a crime gun intelligence center
or the national integrated ballistic information network, including
correlation, lead triage, and lead management;

(c)
Forensic capacity, including ballistics and DNA directly tied to
violent crimes;

(d)
Case-management systems, real-time crime center support, and
analytics that track leads and link cases;

(e)
Backlog and cold-case surge operations for violent crimes;

(f)
Upgrading record management systems to comply with the reporting
requirements under division (J) of this section;

(g)
Ensuring compliance with reporting requirements under division (J) of
this section.

(9)
"Office of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention"
means the office of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention
established by the "Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Act of 1974," 34 U.S.C. 11101 et seq., as amended.

(10)
"Qualified research partner" means an organization with
demonstrated and substantial experience conducting rigorous
evaluations of program effectiveness, including the use of
well-implemented randomized control trials or other evidence-based
research methodologies that allow for strong causal inferences.

(B)
The violent crime reduction grant program is created in the
department of public safety for the purpose of awarding grants to
eligible applicants to reduce and prevent violent crime through
promising or proven strategies. The division of criminal justice
services shall administer the program.

(C)
Grantees may use award funds only for the following purposes:

(1)
To create, implement, and expand violent crime reduction strategies
such as place network investigations, focused deterrence, hot spot
policing, and crime gun intelligence centers;

(2)
To implement or expand the following five core strategies of the
office of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention's comprehensive
gang model:

(a)
Community mobilization;

(b)
Opportunity provision;

(c)
Social intervention;

(d)
Violent crime suppression;

(e)
Organizational change and development.

(3)
To purchase technology as part of a larger violent crime reduction
strategy;

(4)
To provide overtime for personnel directly involved in developing and
implementing a violent crime reduction strategy;

(5)
To purchase equipment directly related to and necessary for
implementation of a violent crime reduction strategy;

(6)
To develop and provide training on a specific violent crime reduction
strategy or on technology to support the strategy;

(7)
To receive technical assistance to create, implement, and expand a
violent crime reduction strategy;

(8)
To purchase analytical tools and analytical support to better
understand and respond to violence occurring in the community and
assess the effectiveness of the violence reduction strategy;

(9)
To address violent crime by other means approved by the division of
criminal justice services.

(D)(1)(a)
The division of criminal justice services shall review, score, and
recommend awards and shall make the criteria used to review, score,
and recommend awards publicly available.

(b)
When recommending awards, the division of criminal justice services
shall prioritize awards for promising or proven strategies that have
undergone a causal methodology evaluation.

(2)
The director of public safety shall approve final awards upon the
recommendation of the executive director of the division of criminal
justice services.

(3)
The division of criminal justice services shall set each grant term,
and no grant term shall extend beyond twenty-four months.

(E)
Except as permitted by rule in cases of documented fiscal hardship,
grant awards should supplement and not supplant a local government's
existing obligations for ongoing services as of the application date.

(F)
The division of criminal justice services shall monitor grantees for
financial and programmatic compliance and may do the following:

(1)
Impose corrective actions;

(2)
Suspend or terminate grants;

(3)
Recover funds for noncompliance.

(G)
The division of criminal justice services shall adopt rules under
Chapter 119. of the Revised Code to implement this section, including
application procedures and deadlines, scoring criteria, reporting
schedules, performance metrics, and fiscal requirements.

(H)
Not later than the first day of October of each year, the division of
criminal justice services shall submit a report to the governor and
the general assembly summarizing awards, strategies funded,
geographic distribution, and statewide and grantee-level outcomes
relative to performance metrics developed by rules adopted under
division (G) of this section. The division shall post the report on
its public web site.

(I)(1)
Except as provided in division (I)(2) of this section, not less than
twenty per cent of amounts awarded from the violent crime reduction
grant program in each fiscal year shall be awarded to clearance rate
improvement projects.

(2)
The director of public safety may waive the percentage requirement in
division (I)(1) of this section only if the office certifies, in a
public notice posted by the thirty-first day of January of that
fiscal year, that the statewide violent crime clearance rate for
crimes that occurred during the most recent calendar year for which
data is available was at or above seventy-five per cent.

(J)
For each year in which a law enforcement agency receives a grant
under this program, that agency shall provide a report to the
division of criminal justice services. Each report shall include the
following information for each violent crime reported to the law
enforcement agency during the grant term period:

(1)
The name of the offense;

(2)
The date the offense was reported to the law enforcement agency;

(3)
The location of the offense;

(4)
The type of force or weapon used, if applicable;

(5)
The race or ethnicity, gender, and age of any victim or victims, if
available;

(6)
If the offense was cleared, all of the following:

(a)
The date the offense was cleared;

(b)
Whether the offense was cleared by arrest or cleared by exceptional
means;

(c)
If the offense was cleared by exceptional means, which exceptional
circumstance justified clearing the offense by exceptional means;

(d)
The race or ethnicity, gender, and age of the offender or offenders,
if available.

(K)(1)
The division of criminal justice services shall enter into an
agreement with a qualified research partner to collect and analyze
data to assess program outcomes. The evaluation shall, to the extent
feasible and appropriate, make use of experimental or
quasi-experimental designs that allow for the strongest possible
causal inferences with respect to outcomes.

(2)
Not later than December 31, 2026, the division of criminal justice
services shall, in collaboration with the qualified research partner,
submit a report to the chairpersons of the standing committees of the
senate and the house of representatives entrusted with matters
concerning criminal justice. The division of criminal justice
services shall make this report publicly available on its web site.