The FY26 Community Policing Development (CPD) Microgrants program provides funding to local, state, tribal, and territorial law enforcement agencies to implement demonstration or pilot projects that work to solve problems in the agency or community, to advance crime fighting, community engagement, problem solving, or organizational changes in support of community policing.

Under this funding opportunity, the COPS Office will fund projects in the following subcategories:

Preventing and Investigating Domestic Terrorism

Domestic terrorism “is criminal conduct that occurs primarily inside the territory of the United States and that involves acts dangerous to human life that appear to be intended to intimidate a civilian population; influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion; or affect the conduct of government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.” [18 U.S.C. §2331(5), quoting Attorney General Memorandum “Implementing National Security Presidential Memorandum-7: Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.”] It is a priority of the United States and the Department of Justice to prevent, detect, and protect against domestic terrorism, including political violence.

Under this subcategory, the COPS Office seeks to support law enforcement agencies in developing or enhancing efforts to prevent and investigate crimes that fall within the above definition of domestic terrorism. This may include such things as collaboration with state, local, tribal, territorial, and/or federal law enforcement or other stakeholders; training for law enforcement officers on complex investigations related to domestic terrorism; or other efforts that increase the likelihood of preventing domestic terrorism or successfully investigating and prosecuting crimes involving domestic terrorism.

Violent Crime Enforcement and Investigations

Violent crime continues to be a significant disruptor to public safety nationwide. To address emerging and persistent violent crime challenges, this subcategory seeks to strengthen law enforcement agencies’ capacity to prevent, investigate, and prosecute violent crime, including homicide, non-fatal shootings, aggravated assault, and armed robbery.

Projects under this subcategory should emphasize the use of evidence-based enforcement models, common sense policing strategies, data, and coordinated investigations to achieve sustained reductions in violent crime. Proposed projects should leverage data to support or build analytic and operational infrastructure that improves violent crime clearance rates, disrupts retaliatory cycles, and strengthens agencies’ ability to deliver measurable reductions in violent crime. Funded projects may support initiatives such as development or deployment of analytic tools that improve violent crime response, targeted enforcement efforts, and crime and gun data integration to guide investigative activity, among others.

Gang Violence Enforcement and Investigations

Tens of thousands of gang-associated incidents threaten the safety of communities nationwide. To address the continued threat to public safety caused by criminal gangs and organized street networks, the COPS Office seeks to support law enforcement agencies’ efforts to develop data-driven strategies that facilitate targeted enforcement and the dismantling of criminal networks. To enhance public safety, projects under this subcategory should support intelligence-led operations and coordinated action to address networks driving community violence. Funded projects may include initiatives such as gang intelligence or network mapping to identify drivers of gang violence, training or technical assistance to build local capacity for gang violence response, and data-driven interventions to support targeted enforcement efforts, among others.

Detecting and Investigating Human Trafficking

As defined by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 and its subsequent reauthorizations (22 U.S.C. § 7102(9)), human trafficking means sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform an act has not attained 18 years of age; or the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.

The detection, identification, and investigation of human trafficking cases are inherently complex, victim-centered, and time-intensive. These investigations require sustained, coordinated, and often collaborative engagement among law enforcement, victim service providers, prosecutors, and community partners. These relationships are essential to effectively identify signs of trafficking, build trust with victims, gather corroborative evidence, and hold traffickers accountable while prioritizing victim safety and recovery. Fragmented efforts significantly limit investigators’ ability to recognize coercive dynamics, respond appropriately, and coordinate trauma-informed interventions.

Under this subcategory, the COPS Office seeks to support law enforcement agencies in projects such as developing or enhancing collaborative, multidisciplinary approaches that strengthen the detection and investigation of human trafficking. For example, applicants can implement targeted activities and evidence-based strategies designed to enhance front-line recognition of trafficking, improve information sharing across agencies, and strengthen investigative responses. Efforts may also leverage agency personnel and resources in conjunction with community partners and other relevant stakeholders to ensure a coordinated response that is both enforcement-focused and victim-centered. Proposed activities may include joint operations, cross-disciplinary training, intelligence-led investigations, and the development of standardized protocols that support consistent and effective human trafficking investigations, among others.

Example strategies can be found on the following DOJ web pages:

• COPS Office Below Ten: Combating Drugs, Guns, and Human Trafficking at the U.S. Southwest Border
• COPS Office Combating Child Sex Trafficking: A Guide for Law Enforcement Leaders
• COPS Office Exploitation of Trafficked Women POP Guide
• COPS Office Recent Labor Trafficking Cases and Trends
• DOJ Human Trafficking web page
• Office for Victims of Crime Human Trafficking web page

Investigating and Interrupting Child Exploitation

Child exploitation encompasses a range of criminal offenses involving the sexual abuse, exploitation, and victimization of children, including child sexual abuse material (CSAM); online enticement; exploitation facilitated through technology; and offenses involving grooming, coercion, or abuse. These crimes are often concealed, damaging, and perpetrated across jurisdictions, requiring specialized investigative expertise, sustained coordination, and victim-centered responses to effectively identify offenders, interrupt ongoing harm, and safeguard child victims.

Investigations into child exploitation are complex and resource-intensive, frequently involving digital evidence, forensic analysis, multijurisdictional coordination, and close collaboration with prosecutors, child advocacy centers, forensic interviewers, and victim service providers. Effective intervention requires investigative collaboration to support real-time information sharing, coordinated operational planning, and trauma-informed responses that minimize revictimization of child victims while strengthening evidentiary outcomes. Disjointed approaches significantly limit investigators’ ability to rapidly assess risk, intervene in active exploitation, and disrupt offender networks.

Under this subcategory, the COPS Office seeks to support law enforcement agencies in developing or enhancing initiatives such as collaborative, multidisciplinary strategies that strengthen the investigation and interruption of child exploitation among others. For example, applicants could implement targeted, evidence-based activities designed to enhance the identification of child exploitation offenses, improve investigative coordination, and strengthen offender accountability. Proposed activities may include such things as joint investigations, multidisciplinary case reviews, specialized training in child exploitation and technology-facilitated crimes, intelligence-led enforcement strategies, and the development or refinement of protocols that support timely intervention, victim-centered practices, and cross-agency collaboration, among other efforts.

Example strategies can be found on the following DOJ web pages:

• COPS Office Child Pornography on the Internet POP Guide
• COPS Office Combating Child Sex Trafficking: A Guide for Law Enforcement Leaders
• Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program web page
• OJJDP Missing and Exploited Children web page
• OJJDP Model Programs Guide Literature Review: Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children/Sex Trafficking

Vagrancy and Squatting

Vagrancy and squatting present significant challenges to public safety. As these issues continue to grow, law enforcement agencies are increasingly tasked with addressing public safety concerns that stem from urban camping, loitering, and illegal squatting. Under this subcategory the COPS Office seeks to fund innovative programs that will enable law enforcement agencies to address the negative impacts of vagrancy, urban camping, loitering, and squatting, with an emphasis on criminal enforcement and achieving an overall reduction in the public safety and quality-of-life problems that these issues present.

Immigration and Border Security

Federal law enforcement enforce our nation’s laws each and every day, including our immigration laws. State and local law enforcement play a critical role in coordinating with federal law enforcement, particularly in ensuring that the illegal immigrants they encounter who are engaged in violent behavior are removed from the streets of this nation. Increasing coordination between local and federal law enforcement in the areas of immigration enforcement and border security is critical to this work. This subcategory seeks to fund projects that improve the response of local agencies to this issue and increases coordination and cooperation with Federal law enforcement agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Investigating and Interrupting Opioid and Drug Markets

The opioid epidemic and expanding drug markets continue to present significant challenges to public safety across the nation. Empowering law enforcement with the resources necessary to address the opioid crisis and the impact of drug markets, particularly “open-air” drug markets, on public safety is critical to the safety of our communities. In response to this issue, this subcategory seeks to fund initiatives that will enhance law enforcement capacity to interrupt opioid distribution networks, dismantle drug trafficking organizations, employ effective enforcement strategies, promote interagency and cross-jurisdictional collaboration, and promote intelligence sharing and innovative methods for opioid-related crime disruption.

Officer Recruitment, Hiring, and Retention

Recruitment and hiring are essential functions of law enforcement agencies to attract and retain the best law enforcement candidates. This subcategory is critical to the ability of law enforcement agencies to operate at the highest levels by attracting, hiring and retaining the most qualified personnel. The COPS Office seeks projects with novel or creative methods for recruitment and retention in law enforcement. Applicants should identify a list of activities and strategies to improve their capacity to recruit, hire, and retain high-quality officers. Applicants should also identify how their proposed activities will be successfully implemented within their agency. A variety of objectives can be proposed to achieve the project goal(s) and may involve agency personnel and resources as well as other partners.

Unmanned Aerial Systems (aka “drones”)

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are being deployed nationwide in an ever-expanding mission to improve public safety. UAS can be used effectively for search-and-rescue operations, pursuit operations, barricaded subjects, digital evidence gathering, and wellness checks. In addition, UAS are used increasingly by the public with varying levels of awareness, proficiency, and compliance with federal law.

Under this subcategory, the COPS Office seeks to fund efforts to implement the effective use of UAS in police operations as a part of a larger comprehensive public safety strategy. Priority consideration will be given to applicants who include a comprehensive evaluation component to measure the success of the project and its impact on public safety. The deployment of UAS technology is subject to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations.

Investigating and Interrupting Cyber Crime

In an increasingly interconnected world, bad actors working locally, nationally, and even internationally seek to take advantage of the access and security risks posed by internet-connected devices, including computers, mobile devices, and the Internet of Things. Whether through scams, phishing schemes, or swatting incidents, Americans are at risk of a range of harms from individuals who can be difficult to track or identify.

Under this subcategory, the COPS Office seeks to fund efforts to improve the capacity of agencies to prevent or disrupt these efforts and to investigate and successfully prosecute the perpetrators when harm does occur.

Efforts relating to online exploitation of children should be submitted under the Investigating and Interrupting Child Exploitation subcategory.

Who is Eligible? 

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Local Law Enforcement Agencies

                     
State Law Enforcement Agencies

                     
Tribal Law Enforcement Agencies

                     
Territorial Law Enforcement Agencies

State and local governmental entities must comply with 8 U.S.C. §1373, which provides that State and local government entities may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, receiving from, maintaining, or exchanging information regarding citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual with components of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or any other federal, state or local government entity. This includes any prohibitions or restrictions imposed or established by a State or local government entity or official. For additional information, please see the appendices in the FY26 CHP Application Resource Guide.