The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) was created in 1984 to reduce violent crime, create safer communities, and reform our Nation’s criminal justice system. BJA’s mission is to provide leadership and services in grant administration and criminal justice policy development to support state, local, and tribal justice strategies to achieve safer communities. BJA works with communities, governments, and nonprofit organizations to reduce crime, recidivism, and unnecessary confinement, and promote a safe and fair criminal justice system.
The FY 2024 Formula DNA Capacity Enhancement for Backlog Reduction (CEBR) Program, sponsored by BJA, provides funding to states and units of local government that operate existing crime laboratories. Its primary goal is to enhance the capacity of these facilities to process a greater number of DNA samples, which will be entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). This initiative aims to significantly reduce the current backlog of forensic DNA and DNA database samples awaiting analysis and to prevent future accumulations of these samples.