Today, Congressman Dan Maffei announced more than $800,000 from the Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Service (COPS) program for law enforcement agencies in our area. The funding will be used by local law enforcement officials to enhance school safety and crack down on child sexual predators.
Congressman Maffei said: “Our local law enforcement needs more financial support from the federal government, especially during these tough economic times. I am proud to have worked on COPS in the Judiciary Committee and to announce these important grants for two local organizations so they can better fight crime and protect our children.”
In this round of grants, more than $27 million were approved for two other COPS programs: Secure Our Schools and the Child Sexual Predator Program (CSPP). Secure Our Schools grants, which are two years in duration, are designed to help local governments pay for measures that will improve security in our schools. CSPP grants, which aim to prevent child endangerment and protect communities from sexual predators, are designed to help local law enforcement agencies prosecute predators, enforce state sex offender registration laws, and establish partnerships with federal law enforcement, prosecutors, parole and probation offices, and social services agencies.
The two organizations in our area that received grants are:
The Town and Village of Camillus received $349,000 through the Secure Our Schools Program
Monroe County Sheriff’s Office received $483,961 through Child Sexual Predator Program
The COPS program has a long history of success. The COPS hiring grants program was created in 1994 and soon hired 117,000 additional police officers to staff undermanned local law enforcement groups. This achievement won it accolades from a broad group of leaders, ranging from President Bill Clinton to then-Senator John Ashcroft. However, severe cuts under the Bush administration undermined the program to the point where it lacked any federal funding in 2006 and 2007, leaving community law enforcement agencies on their own.
In response, the House Judiciary Committee, on which Congressman Maffei sits, met this March to endorse improvements to the COPS program. The passage of these measures by the broader House of Representatives made it possible for jurisdictions around the country to hire and train tens of thousands of new police officers. Central New York alone gained enough funding for the addition of an estimated 113 new cops dedicated to preventing and investigating crime in our communities.
