BJS FY25 Survey of Public Defenders (SPD) | O BJS 2025 172531

Opportunity Information: Apply for O BJS 2025 172531

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) FY 2025 Survey of Public Defenders (SPD) is a federal discretionary grant opportunity focused on launching a nationwide data collection effort that reaches public defenders at the attorney level, rather than only at the office level. The central aim is to build a clearer, more current national picture of how public defense is actually delivered in practice by collecting information directly from attorneys about their work and working conditions. The survey is intended to capture key topics such as defender demographics, caseloads, characteristics of clients served, and access to resources that shape the quality and efficiency of representation. In practical terms, this solicitation is about producing high-quality, nationally useful statistics that policymakers, researchers, and justice system stakeholders can use to understand needs, capacity, and variation in public defense across jurisdictions.

This SPD effort builds on decades of BJS work studying indigent defense, while intentionally modernizing what gets measured and how. BJS has been examining criminal defense since at least 1986, when it conducted the Criminal Defense System Study. Later, BJS conducted targeted public defense studies through the National Survey of Indigent Defense Systems (NSIDS), first as a probability sample in 1999 and then as a census in 2013. Lessons from the 1999 NSIDS also helped drive the Census of Public Defender Offices (CPDO) in 2007, which focused specifically on publicly funded defender offices. A key turning point reflected in this new solicitation is the recognition that office-level data alone cannot answer some of the most important questions about day-to-day public defense delivery, workload, and resource access as experienced by individual attorneys. The SPD is meant to fill that gap by shifting the unit of measurement toward the attorney experience while still maintaining a national statistical design.

The SPD instrument and sampling approach were developed and pilot tested in 2021, which helped BJS identify design and implementation lessons that could strengthen a full national rollout. One major challenge was that an incomplete or outdated national frame of public defender offices can undermine sampling and representativeness. To address that, BJS conducted a new CPDO in 2025 to refresh the underlying frame. The FY 2025 SPD solicitation is designed to use that updated 2025 CPDO foundation and incorporate recommendations from the 2021 pilot so the full national SPD collection can be fielded with better coverage, stronger sampling, and improved data quality.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity is offered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics under CFDA (Assistance Listing) 16.734, with the funding activity categorized under Information and Statistics. The funding instrument is a cooperative agreement, which generally signals that BJS expects to have substantial involvement in the project, such as collaborating on methodological decisions, instrument refinement, data collection planning, quality assurance, and dissemination. The opportunity anticipates a single award, with an award ceiling of $1,000,000, indicating that BJS plans to fund one primary organization to carry out the national collection rather than multiple parallel awards.

Eligibility is broad and includes public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, private institutions of higher education, independent school districts, nonprofit organizations both with and without 501(c)(3) status, for-profit organizations other than small businesses, and small businesses. That range suggests BJS is open to a variety of research and data-collection performers, including universities, survey research organizations, and other entities with the technical capacity to execute a national statistical collection. The funding opportunity number is O-BJS-2025-172531, and the original closing date listed is March 2, 2026.

• The Bureau of Justice Statistics in the information and statistics sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "BJS FY25 Survey of Public Defenders (SPD)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 16.734.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2026-01-21.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2026-03-02. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $1,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses.

Apply for O BJS 2025 172531

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