Attorney
General Jeff Sessions today announced grant awards to Public Safety
Partnership member sites as part of $10 million in funding to support
state, local and tribal law enforcement departments and agencies and
their partners who are fighting violent crime in jurisdictions across
the United States.
The Office of Justice Programs’ Bureau of Justice Assistance, in
partnership with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and
Explosives, is awarding $5 million under the Local Law Enforcement Crime
Gun Intelligence Center Integration Initiative to encourage local
jurisdictions to use intelligence, technology and community engagement
to identify unlawfully used firearms and to prosecute those who commit
violent crimes.
Grant recipients include the PSP cities of Indianapolis, Indiana, $798,
866; Memphis, Tennessee, $714,055; Tulsa, Oklahoma, $800,000 and Baton
Rouge, Louisiana, $634,971. Other locations include Detroit,
Michigan, $800,000; the Albuquerque, New Mexico, Police Department,
$452,108, and the City/County of San Francisco, California, $800,000.
The jurisdictions will use these awards to hire personnel to utilize the
National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN), to purchase
technology required to operate a Crime Gun Intelligence Center and
ammunition for ballistic tests of recovered weapons.
The Attorney General also announced awards for BJA’s Technology
Innovation for Public Safety (TIPS): Addressing Precipitous Increases in
Crime program.
This program supports the Department’s priorities of reducing violent
crime and supporting law enforcement officers, including prosecutors.
While many jurisdictions are making significant progress implementing
justice information sharing solutions to address critical gaps in crime
prevention and response activities across organizations and
jurisdictions, there remain challenges for the criminal justice system
to respond to threats to public safety. This is especially true for
efforts addressing significant increases in crime.
Justice information sharing technology refers to any hardware and
software, hosted residentially or remotely, that plays a role in the
collection, storage, sharing and analysis of criminal justice data.
Funding under this program is provided to help state, local,
territorial, and tribal jurisdictions use innovative technological
solutions to enhance their justice information-sharing capacity.
Grant recipients include the PSP cities of Memphis, Tennessee, $417,224;
Toledo, Ohio, $492,553; Flint, Michigan, $499,694 and Houston, Texas,
$500,000. Other locations include Arizona Criminal Justice Commission,
$317,834; City of Boynton Beach, Florida, $465,860; Clark County Social
Service, Nevada, $500,000; New Mexico Second Judicial District Attorney,
$500,000; State of Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and
Public Protection; $419,804; Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, New
Jersey, $500,000; and Georgia Bureau of Investigation, $499,339.
Additional information on the grant awards can be found at: www.bja.gov
Attorney General Jeff Sessions made the announcement during today’s
National Public Safety Partnership Symposium on Violent Crime in
Birmingham, Alabama. The National Public Safety Partnership is a
DOJ-wide initiative that enables cities to consult with and receive a
coordinated array of resources from DOJ’s programmatic and law
enforcement components: the Bureau of Justice Assistance; United States
Attorneys’ Offices; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration; the U.S. Marshals Service; the Office on
Violence Against Women; the Office of Justice Programs; the Office of
Community Oriented Policing Services; and other federal agencies in
order to improve local violence reduction strategies.
