By Ed Somers
February 11, 2008

As crime and gun violence continue to increase in many cities, mayors called on Congress to reverse drastic cuts in anti-crime programs. During the meeting of the Criminal and Social Justice Committee on January 23, the mayors discussed strategies for restoration of the Byrne/Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program, which was cut 67 percent — down from $520 million in 2007 to $170 million in 2008.

During the meeting, it was announced that Senators Tom Harkin (IA) and Christopher Bond (MO) — along with Senators Dianne Feinstein (CA), Saxby Chambliss (GA) and Joe Biden (DE) — will lead a bi-partisan effort to reverse this funding cut that will have a devastating impact on local and state crime reduction efforts and regional drug task forces. According to Dan Goldberg with the office of Senator Harkin, the Senators are seeking to increase the JAG program to a total of $660 million (the level contained in the original Senate funding bill) as part of an expected supplemental funding package.

The mayors also expressed disappointment that as Congress cut funding to meet the targets set by the Administration, the COPS hiring program received just $20 million — down from the $110 million called for by the Senate.

Rochester (NY) Mayor Robert Duffy, chair, reminded the committee that, “Rebuilding the federal-local partnership on crime prevention is a top priority in our Mayors 10-Point Plan.”

The committee was also joined by Representative Carolyn McCarthy, who discussed her recently-enacted bill to improve criminal record sharing and make sure prohibited individuals cannot purchase firearms. Passed in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, the bill would encourage states to share more data regarding person adjudicated as mentally ill.

This is the first federal gun safety legislation signed into law in 12 years. Brady Campaign President Paul Helmke said that additional steps are needed to stop the illegal gun trade by closing the gun show loophole and making sure persons on terrorist watch lists cannot buy weapons.

The committee also reviewed a successful partnership with the FBI to discredit the misuse of federal crime statistics to rank cities as “most dangerous” and pledged to work with the FBI on improvement of the crime data collection process. St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, who raised this issue a year ago, said the balanced media response to this-year’s crime rankings was due to the campaign launched by the Conference of Mayors.

One week after the Winter Meeting, there were a series of Capital Hill briefings and press events focused on restoring the JAG program.

In a press conference on January 30, Harkin said, “Every year that Byrne Grants are slashed, we run the risk of keeping more drugs and criminals on the street.” Bond added, “Restoring Byrne Justice Grant funds will assist our law enforcement in the fight against drugs, gangs and violent offenders and protect our communities from harm.”