Attorney General Merrick Garland and other Department of Justice (DOJ) officials discussed the agency’s concentration on community anti-violence efforts on Thursday, emphasizing the role that its grant program plays in preventing violence.
Garland spoke in St. Louis at a meeting for the recipients of grants from the DOJ’s Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative, which seeks to invest in “community-based prevention and intervention programs” that reduce violent crime.
He praised the recipients who received grants totaling $100 million in aggregate to limit violence in their communities. The funding went to almost 50 organizations and agencies throughout the country, and the DOJ will announce an additional $100 million in funding in the upcoming weeks, Garland noted.
“We are all here because we believe that everyone in this country deserves to feel safe in their communities,” he said. “Every person, on every street, in every neighborhood, deserves to feel protected.”
Garland gave several examples of how the DOJ’s grant recipients are using the funding to engage in anti-violence efforts.
He explained how one nonprofit organization in Baltimore is planning to employ messengers to speak with residents living near open-air drug markets and areas with high levels of violent crime. He also shared an example of a county teen court and youth services provider in North Carolina that is seeking to stop violence in underserved rural areas through community engagement, gang prevention, street outreach and victim services.
Garland added that the first community violence intervention program in Puerto Rico is using the funding to support services like violence “interrupters” and street outreach workers.
These examples are only a “sample” of the work that is happening throughout the country because of the program, he said.
The DOJ is also providing training and technical assistance to support the recipients and other jurisdictions that want to learn about the program, according to Garland. He added that recipients should work with researchers to evaluate their programs to look for ways to make them more effective.
“We also recognize that there is no one-sized-fits-all solution to reducing violent crime,” Garland said. “We must deploy strategies that are tailored to the needs and are developed by individual communities. And we must work every day to build and maintain the public trust that is essential to public safety.”