As Introduced

136th General Assembly

Regular Session H. B. No. 830

2025-2026

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;

(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.

(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;

(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.