U.S. Congressman Bill Pascrell, Jr.
For Immediate Release
March 20, 2018
Media Contact:
Mark Greenbaum
(202) 225-5751
mark.greenbaum@mail.house.gov
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Representatives Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ) and Dave Reichert (R-WA), co-chairs of the House Law Enforcement Caucus, led a bipartisan letter signed by 173 colleagues requesting that Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Chairman John Culberson and Ranking Member José Serrano provide sufficient funding in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 appropriation bill for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne JAG) Program and the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) programs.
“These programs are critical to ensuring that state and local law enforcement have the tools, programs, personnel and resources necessary to protect and serve their communities, including in efforts to prevent further gun violence and help stem the opioid epidemic,” the Members write. “Since their inception, the Byrne JAG and COPS programs have enabled law enforcement agencies to form vital partnerships among communities and law enforcement officers, combat criminal activities, and develop and implement problem-solving and crime prevention programs nationwide.”
Last year, Reps. Pascrell and Reichert sent a letter to President Trump outlining the importance of the COPS Office. Prior to the release of the President’s budget, Reps. Pascrell and Reichert led a letter signed by 133 of their colleagues in support of robust financial support for the COPS Office in FY19. The letters highlighted the critical role the COPS Office serves to support the law enforcement community and improving community policing efforts across the country to keep neighborhoods safe. The letters also raised concerns about any proposals that would jeopardize the work of the COPS Office. The President eliminated the COPS Office in his FY19 budget.
Background on the Byrne JAG Program
The Byrne JAG program allows states and local governments to support a broad range of activities to prevent and control crimes based on their own local needs and conditions. Grants can be used for state and local initiatives, technical assistance, training, personnel, equipment, supplies, contractual support and information systems for criminal justice for any one or more of the following areas: 1) law enforcement programs; 2) prosecution and court programs; 3) prevention and education programs; 4) corrections and community corrections programs; 5) drug treatment programs and 6) planning, evaluation and technology improvement programs.
COPS Office Background
Since its inception, the COPS Office has placed more than 130,000 sworn law enforcement officers in communities across the country by providing grants for the hiring of officers through the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Hiring Program. These grants provide federal resources to communities with public safety needs that may lack the funds to hire law enforcement officers. Additionally, the COPS Office is responsible for implementing legislation authored and co-sponsored by Reps. Pascrell and Reichert. Specifically, the COPS Office oversees implementation the Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu National Blue Alert Act (Public Law: 114-12), which establishes a nationwide Blue Alert communications system to help disseminate information on serious injury or death of a law enforcement officer in the line of duty, an officer who is missing in connection with the officer’s official duties, or an imminent and credible threat that an individual intends to cause the serious injury or death of a law enforcement officer. Finally, the COPS Office is responsible for overseeing implementation of the Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act (Public Law: 115-113), which allows the COPS Office to make grants available to initiate peer mentoring pilot programs and develop training to meet law enforcement mental health needs.
Text of the bipartisan letter follows:
March 14, 2018
The Honorable John Culberson The Honorable José Serrano
Chairman Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice,
Science, and Related Agencies Science, and Related Agencies
House Appropriations Committee House Appropriations Committee
Washington, DC 20515 Washington, DC 20515
Dear Chairman Culberson and Ranking Member Serrano:
Thank you for your ongoing and diligent efforts to appropriately rebalance limited resources in order to support our nation’s highest priorities. As you begin to craft the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS) appropriation bill for Fiscal Year 2019, we respectfully urge you to include sufficient funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne JAG) Program and the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) programs — in particular, the COPS Hiring program. These programs are critical to ensuring that state and local law enforcement have the tools, programs, personnel and resources necessary to protect and serve their communities, including in efforts to prevent further gun violence and help stem the opioid epidemic.
The Byrne JAG and COPS programs are the cornerstone of our federal justice assistance programs. Since their inception, the Byrne JAG and COPS programs have enabled law enforcement agencies to form vital partnerships among communities and law enforcement officers, combat criminal activities, and develop and implement problem-solving and crime prevention programs nationwide.
The strength of the Byrne JAG program is in its impact across the criminal justice system, from law enforcement to prosecution and courts, crime prevention and education, corrections and community corrections, drug treatment and enforcement, program planning, evaluation, technology improvement, and crime victim and witness initiatives.
The COPS Office and its corresponding programs provide invaluable resources and technical assistance to state and local law enforcement agencies, keeping our communities safe. Sufficient funding is critical to ensuring that law enforcement has the resources necessary to effectively and efficiently protect the public, because in recent years law enforcement agencies have experienced shrinking budgets and difficult decisions concerning operational readiness and number of officers on patrol.
We appreciate the difficulty you face in appropriating adequate resources for the programs under your jurisdiction and we thank you for your work. Support for the Byrne JAG and COPS Hiring programs is imperative to the safety of our communities. These programs supplement the manpower and incentivize collaboration across agencies necessary to build upon successful crime reduction efforts of the past twenty years. For these reasons, we respectfully request that you include strong funding for the Byrne JAG and COPS programs, especially the COPS Hiring program, in the FY2019 CJS appropriations bill.
Sincerely,
Signatories:
Bill Pascrell, Jr.
Dave Reichert
- Donald McEachin
Alma S. Adams, Ph.D.
Rick W. Allen
Lou Barletta
Andy Barr
Nanette Diaz Barragán
Joyce Beatty
Ami Bera, M.D.
Donald S. Beyer, Jr.
Earl Blumenauer
Suzanne Bonamici
Brendan F. Boyle
Robert A. Brady
Anthony G. Brown
Julia Brownley
Cheri Bustos
- K. Butterfield
Bradley Byrne
Mike Capuano
Salud O. Carbajal
André Carson
Earl L. Buddy’ Carter
Kathy Castor
Judy Chu
David N. Cicilline
Steve Cohen
Barbara Comstock
Gerald E. Connolly
Jim Costa
Ryan A. Costello
Joe Courtney
Kevin Cramer
Charlie Crist
Joe Crowley
Elijah E. Cummings
Carlos Curbelo
Danny K. Davis
Rodney Davis
Peter DeFazio
Diana DeGette
John K. Delaney
Rosa L. DeLauro
Val Butler Demings
Mark DeSaulnier
Ted Deutch
Daniel M. Donovan, Jr.
Keith Ellison
Tom Emmer
Eliot L. Engel
Anna G. Eshoo
Adriano Espaillat
Elizabeth H. Esty
Dwight Evans
Brian Fitzpatrick
Bill Foster
Lois Frankel
Marcia L. Fudge
Tulsi Gabbard
Ruben Gallego
Tom Garrett
Vicente Gonzalez
Paul A. Gosar
Josh Gottheimer
Garret Graves
Michelle Lujan Grisham
Colleen Hanabusa
Vicky Hartzler
Alcee L. Hastings
Denny Heck
Jody Hice
Brian Higgins
French Hill
James A. Himes
Steny H. Hoyer
Jared Huffman
Randy Hultgren
Hakeem Jeffries
Bill Johnson
Mike Johnson
Henry C. “Hank” Johnson, Jr.
William R. Keating
Robin L. Kelly
Trent Kelly
Joseph P. Kennedy, III
Daniel T. Kildee
Ron Kind
Peter T. King
Steve King
Adam Kinzinger
Steve Knight
Ann McLane Kuster
Doug LaMalfa
Leonard Lance
James R. Langevin
Rick Larsen
John B. Larson
Barbara Lee
Sander Levin
John Lewis
Ted W. Lieu
Daniel W. Lipinski
Frank A. LoBiondo
Zoe Lofgren
Billy Long
Alan Lowenthal
Ben Ray Luján
Stephen F. Lynch
Tom MacArthur
Sean Patrick Maloney
Doris Matsui
James P. McGovern
David B. McKinley, P.E.
Jerry McNerney
Martha McSally
Patrick Meehan
Gwen S. Moore
Seth Moulton
Stephanie Murphy
Jerrold Nadler
Grace F. Napolitano
Richard E. Neal
Richard M. Nolan
Donald Norcross
Eleanor Holmes Norton
Beto O’Rourke
Tom O’Halleran
Jimmy Panetta
Donald M. Payne, Jr.
Ed Perlmutter
Scott H. Peters
Collin C. Peterson
Jamie Raskin
Kathleen M. Rice
Cedric L. Richmond
Mike Rogers
Jacky Rosen
Keith J. Rothfus
Lucille Roybal-Allard
Raul Ruiz
Bobby L. Rush
Linda T. Sánchez
John P. Sarbanes
Jan Schakowsky
Adam B. Schiff
Bradley S. Schneider
David Scott
Terri A. Sewell
Carol Shea-Porter
Brad Sherman
Kyrsten Sinema
Albio Sires
Louise Slaughter
Adam Smith
Jason Smith
Steve Stivers
Eric Swalwell
Mark Takano
Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson
Mike Thompson
Scott Tipton
Paul Tonko
Norma J. Torres
Niki Tsongas
Michael R. Turner
Juan Vargas
Marc Veasey
Filemon Vela
Timothy J. Walz
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Bruce Westerman
Frederica S. Wilson
Rob Woodall
John Yarmuth
Don Young