34 U.S.C. § 12171 — Grant authority

This section has nine lettered parts, (a) through (i). (a) Grants. The Attorney General may give grants to qualified community organizations to help pay for programs that recruit and keep applicants for police departments. The Attorney General may consult the Ounce of Prevention Council when deciding on these grants. (b) Qualified community organizations. To get a grant, an organization must be a nonprofit, and it must have training and experience in: working with a police department and with teachers, counselors, and similar staff; serving the community where it's located; building and running services that recruit people to join a police department and help them meet membership requirements; building and running services that help keep those applicants in the process; and developing other programs that benefit the community. (c) Qualified programs. A program qualifies for a grant if it's designed to recruit and train people from underrepresented neighborhoods, and if it recruits and retains police applicants overall; offers tutoring so people can meet academic requirements and pass entrance exams; counsels applicants through problems that come up during the application process; and provides services that help keep people in that process. (d) Applications. A qualified organization applies to the Attorney General in whatever form is required. The application must document the need for the grant, how the money will be used, the results expected, and the demographics of the people served -- age, disability, race, ethnicity, and languages spoken. It must also promise to follow the program guidelines the Attorney General sets under part (i). (e) Action by Attorney General. Within 60 days of getting an application, the Attorney General must talk with the relevant police department, then either approve the application and send the grant money, or turn it down and explain why in writing. (f) Grant disbursement. The Attorney General's rules for handing out grant money must make sure that areas and organizations with the greatest need get priority, that money is spread out fairly by geography, and that underserved populations' needs are recognized and addressed. (g) Grant period. A grant can last no longer than 3 years. (h) Grantee reporting. Each year of the grant, the recipient must file a report explaining what it did with the money and how well that worked. If more than one organization received the grant, each one files its own report. If a recipient doesn't file the report, or spends the money on something the grant doesn't allow, the Attorney General must pause the funding until the recipient fixes the problem. (i) Guidelines. The Attorney General must write regulations setting content and results guidelines for these grant programs, aimed at making them effective at training people for police department jobs. Those guidelines must cover requirements for the people providing recruiting services, the people providing tutoring and other academic help, the people providing retention services, and the content and length of the recruitment, retention, and counseling programs -- plus how those programs get publicized.