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Funding cuts threaten anti-crime efforts
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Posted on Jun 04 2008
Local crime-fighting programs are facing deep cuts in their federal funding after the White House slashed a major grant program that provides over $1 million a year to the Northern Marianas.
The Criminal Justice Planning Agency, which administers the grants in the Commonwealth, said the CNMI would receive just a little over $370,000 from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program this year. This is a decrease of 67 percent from the CNMI’s $1.32 million allocation in 2007.
The Byrne grants help local law enforcement officials deal with violent crime and serious offenders. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance show that funding to all of the states and territories has been reduced up to 78 percent year on year, with the total allocations plunging from $305 million in 2007 to $107 million in 2008.
The White House earlier this year proposed $200 million for program. When the Senate passed the Iraq war supplemental funding bill last month, it allotted an immediate $490 million for the Byrne grants. While the White House has not singled out the Byrne grants, it has threatened to veto the bill over add-ons that do not deal with the war in Iraq.
CJPA executive director Jerome Ierome, who sits on the board of the National Criminal Justice Association, said the NCJA hopes that President George W. Bush will approve the additional funding for the Byrne grants.
“The cuts will have an adverse impact on our law enforcement programs,” he said.
In 2007, nearly one-fourth ($260,000) of the CNMI’s allocation went to the Department of Public Safety. The projects funded by the Byrne grants ranged from community policing to criminal investigation.
About $200,000 was used to fund the development of a criminal justice information system, and approximately $160,000 went to drug enforcement efforts. The local courts received about $110,000.
Other agencies that benefited from the Byrne grants were the Office of Probation, Office of the Attorney General, Board of Parole, Juvenile Probation Office, Crime Stoppers, and the enforcement arm of the Department of Commerce.
