By Kathy Amoroso
February 9, 2004

"If you want to stop crime from happening, we need to make that gun, when the criminal thinks about it, radioactive. We will never break the link between a criminal and a gun, but if we can make our criminals hide the gun, if we can make our criminals have someone in the gang in charge of the guns, if we can get the gun out of the hand and out of the car console, then we'll have a lot of fistfights, we'll have a lot of stabbings, but we'll have fewer shootings, fewer innocents shot, and fewer neighborhoods terrorized by the constant exchange of gunfire." This was the message of Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, Jr., in his opening remarks at the Criminal and Social Justice Committee Meeting at the 72nd Winter Meeting of The U.S. Conference of Mayors on January 21.

Outlining the U.S. Department of Justice's Project Safe Neighborhoods Initiative, Comey continued, saying, "What's different is that for the first time the federal government has some money, not a lot of money, for the U.S. Attorneys, so they can support outreach programs, they can support some of the community efforts to get this accomplished."

Describing the success of Project Exile, one of the initiative's most successful efforts, Comey outlined the mayor's role in the effort to build a network against gun violence, saying, "It still falls to you to energize your business communities, as you have in so many ways as mayors, to help them understand this project, to understand what it's about, why they should care about it, and why they should support it." Project Exile featured billboards advertising that "An Illegal Gun Will Get You Five Years in Federal Prison." These billboards were designed to change the culture of crime; to sell the product of fear and deterrence to criminals so that they would think twice about carrying an illegal firearm in the commission of a crime. And the project has had considerable success. Comey urged mayors to continue the success of the project by pulling together community partnerships of state/local/federal and business entities to develop and fund an advertising campaign to stop gun violence.

Deborah J. Daniels, Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice, told the mayors about 2004 budget and program priorities for the Office of Justice Programs. First and foremost is the President's DNA Initiative. Last year the department recognized the tremendous opportunity to make policing more effective at every level by dealing with the issue of DNA testing, including the issue of mistakenly convicting people . The five year, $1 billion initiative will tackle the tremendous backlog of DNA crime scene and offender samples on all fronts. The administration is pouring millions of dollars into enhancing lab capacity across the country, according to Daniels. "We want to do more research and expand the national database to improve response time on DNA testing, including post-conviction testing. We also provide money for police training in this area."

Another priority is the Offender Reentry Initiative, according to Daniels. "This is the biggest crime problem cities face in their communities," she said. "There is a 67 percent recidivism rate in the first three years of prisoners coming out. So we are trying to tackle all areas: education, job training, life skills training, and the mentoring component in the faith-based community." Citing Fort Wayne as an example of this comprehensive effort's success, Daniels said that they were able to reduce recidivism from 67 to 12.5 percent.

With regard to the Department of Homeland Security and Domestic Preparedness, Daniels described $4 billion in 2004 grants for equipment and training. This new funding can be used to complement traditional crime fighting as it is not first responder funding.

Carl R. Peed, Director of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), focused on the $85 million (up from $74 million last year) in interoperability grants available in 2004 in his remarks. "The '03 money was for voice communication only," Peed said. "The '04 money is for both voice and data."

"We also have an extensive compilation of community policing resources," Peed said, referring to the thirty-one Regional Community Policing Institutes nationwide. "They partner with law enforcement agencies in the community and provide crucial training including -Terrorism Training for Law Enforcement, Terrorism Extremism, and Agri-Terrorism.-"

Finally, Peed told the mayors about $60 million in the Conference report in available funding for School Resources Officers.

The final speaker for the session was Diane M. Stuart, Director of the Office on Violence Against Women. Her remarks focused on President Bush's announcement of the Family Justice Center Initiative, which would co-locate services into one central location to facilitate access for victims of domestic violence.

"We have received over 400 letters of intent to apply for funding under this initiative." Stuart said, "We are funding only 12, but we are hoping that this can spark the growth of a coordinated community response nationwide to battle this problem so that together we can truly make a difference."