City’s District Attorneys Worry Over Big Funding Cuts
February 7, 2008
Facing millions of dollars in cuts in both federal and city funding, local prosecutors are scrambling to find ways to avoid significantly reducing the size of proven crime-fighting programs.
The federal government in December signed off on slashing by 67% its funding for one of the country’s largest law enforcement grant programs, the Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Grant Program, which for years has funded specialized task forces within the offices of the city’s five district attorneys to fight a broad spectrum of crimes, such as narcotics trafficking, gang activity, and identity theft. The program is named for a city police officer who was gunned down in the Bronx while guarding a witness who had agreed to testify against a group of drug dealers.
With the mayor’s fiscal year 2009 budget calling for 6% cuts to the funding for the district attorneys, prosecutors are foreseeing disaster.
“This is going to have devastating effects,” District Attorney Charles Hynes of Brooklyn said. “We depend on funds from the Byrne grants for our gang and narcotics investigations and to run a number of prevention programs throughout Brooklyn.”
Source: NY Sun Read the full story here
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