Column from U.S. Senator Russ Feingold
Supporting Wisconsin Law Enforcement
February 20, 2008
Day in and day out, people in Wisconsin’s communities depend
on local law enforcement to keep our streets safe, and to respond in
an emergency. Wisconsin counts on our outstanding law enforcement officers,
and, in turn, those officers should be able to count on the federal
government to give them the support they need to do their all-important
work.
The federal government has a responsibility to provide the tools, technology,
and training that our nation’s law enforcement officers need to
protect our communities. Yet, year after year, critical law enforcement
programs are threatened with deep funding cuts, including the Byrne
Justice Assistance Grant program.
Byrne Justice Assistance Grants, a vital grant program for state and
local law enforcement, suffered severe cutbacks in the President’s
budget proposal this year. Byrne grants have assisted the creation of
drug task forces, drug courts, drug education and prevention programs,
and many other efforts to reduce drug abuse and prosecute drug offenders.
The president’s proposed budget eliminates specific funding for
this critical program entirely.
I have fought these cuts, year after year, because when I talk to law
enforcement officials in Wisconsin about what the federal government
can do to help them better protect Wisconsin communities, supporting
Byrne grants is at the top of the list.
Lately, I have been hearing from Wisconsin law enforcement officials
about the increase in violent crimes in their communities. Indeed, according
to the 2006 FBI Uniform Crime Report, violent crime in Wisconsin increased
by a staggering 18.1 percent and, unfortunately, the recently released
preliminary statistics for 2007 indicate that these rates have continued
to rise in both Milwaukee and Green Bay.
Cuts to the Byrne program would undermine law enforcement’s efforts
to fight violent crime. I’m also concerned that proposed cuts
to the COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) program, a federal
program that is instrumental in providing funding to train new officers
and purchase crime-fighting technologies, could have the same effect.
Under the President’s new budget proposal, both the Byrne program
and the COPS programs are under threat. Congress has authorized spending
for these programs at a combined total of more than $2 billion, but
the President proposed that they be replaced with new, untested programs
that add up to only $400 million – and under the President’s
proposal that money would also have to fund numerous other initiatives
beyond the scope of the current Byrne and COPS programs.
We’ve been down this road with the Administration before. This
is not the first time the president has proposed a complete elimination
of the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant program, but Congress has rightly
rejected these efforts and provided funding to the program – although
I was disappointed that more was not appropriated to this critical program
for 2008. Last year’s presidential budget also proposed funding
the COPS program at only $32 million, but my colleagues and I fought
back to secure $587 million for the program.
This year, I’m once again working with my colleagues to keep
the Byrne Grant program going, and to support the COPS Program. I hope
that Senators from both parties will come together to ensure we do everything
possible to provide the resources law enforcement agencies need to keep
our communities safe.
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