Attorney
General Jeff Sessions is promising his Justice Department will lead the charge
in helping cities fight violent crime, and police chiefs are ready with their
wish-lists.
More
technology to trace guns after shootings. More grant money. More intelligence
analysts to help dismantle gangs. More protective gear and equipment. As the
head of one police officers' union put it, "We need more of
everything."
But
Sessions, who cut his teeth as a federal prosecutor in Mobile, Alabama, at the
height of the drug war in the 1980s, has inherited a federal government that
built itself to fight terrorism since 9/11 and, more recently, to combat
cybercrime.
Since taking
office, Sessions has spoken repeatedly about a spike in murders. He and
President Donald Trump ordered the creation of a crime-fighting task force,
bringing together the heads of the major law enforcement agencies. And they
seem to be counting on tighter border security to stop a flow of drugs and
reduce crime.
But they
have yet to detail how federal law enforcement should juggle priorities or
offer new money for crime-fighting, especially in the face of Trump's plan to
slash nonmilitary budgets. Some clarity could come Thursday when the
administration unveils its budget proposal.
"He'll
find out very quickly that you can't pull people off all these other things
just to go do that," said Robert Anderson, who was the FBI's most senior
criminal investigator until his retirement in 2015. Anderson joined the bureau
in the 1990s, when combating violence and drugs was its top challenge.
"Now he's walking into a much different Justice Department and FBI."
Kerry
Sleeper, assistant director of the FBI office that works with local law
enforcement, said that after decades of declines in violence, police chiefs are
coming to grips with a new uptick and asking for federal help.
What they'd
like to see:
— In
Milwaukee, Police Chief Edward Flynn said he would like an expansion of the
work done in that city by the Justice Department's Violence Reduction Network.
It teams officers with deputy U.S. marshals and agents with the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Drug Enforcement
Administration to target high-crime areas. "It's encouraging to have an
incoming administration take an interest in the spikes in violence in central
cities," he told The Associated Press.
— In
Baltimore, which recorded 318 homicides last year, Police Commissioner Kevin
Davis has said he would like federal agencies to double the number of agents
assigned to cities experiencing spikes in violence.
— In
Chicago, singled out by the White House for its surge in shootings, Police
Superintendent Eddie Johnson has said he would welcome more agents and money
for mentorship and after-school programs to help kids in violent neighborhoods
and, in turn, reduce crime.
Other cities
want help processing evidence, tracing guns and prosecuting drug traffickers
and dealers as they combat heroin and opioid addiction.
More chiefs
are asking the FBI for its help with intelligence-gathering to thwart crime,
said Stephen Richardson, assistant director for the FBI's criminal division.
Making
violent crime a priority is a departure for a Justice Department that has
viewed as more urgent the prevention of cyberattacks from foreign criminals,
counterterrorism and the threat of homegrown violent extremism. And while local
police say they want more help fighting violence, such a plan could put new
pressure on Justice Department agencies already strapped for resources.
"Our
budget's been eroding," Thomas Brandon, acting ATF director, told a
congressional committee last week. The ranks of the agency's special agents hit
an eight-year low in fiscal year 2013 and have not grown dramatically since
then.
Sessions'
focus fits his background. His career as a prosecutor began when there was
bipartisan agreement in Washington that the best way to fight crime was with
long, mandatory prison sentences. And he views today's relatively low crime
rates as a sign that those policies worked. Just last week, he underscored his
priority in a memo to the nation's federal prosecutors that they should use all
available resources to take down the worst offenders.
In contrast,
the Obama administration's Justice Department focused its aid to local police
on improving community relations.
The federal
government has long played a role in fighting crime through grants and
partnerships. Agents assigned to field offices work with local police to share
intelligence on gangs and shootings, hunt fugitives and probe bank robberies,
among other things. Constance Hester-Davis, special agent in charge of the
ATF's field division in New Orleans, said her agents routinely work alongside
local counterparts, even attending community meetings.
"At the
end of the day, crime is a state and local concern," said Chuck Wexler,
executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a law enforcement
think tank. "However, what police chiefs say is the federal government does
have a responsibility, particularly when they prosecute."
Such
cooperation can work. Oakland, California, police saw killings fall from 126 in
2012 to 85 in 2016, two years after FBI agents were embedded in the homicide
unit. Ten agents now share an office with Oakland detectives, offering help
gathering evidence, collecting DNA, chasing leads and bringing federal
prosecutions that carry longer sentences in far-away prisons. Detectives solved
at least 60 percent of their cases last year, compared to about 30 percent in
2010, said Russell Nimmo, FBI supervisory special agent on the Oakland Safe
Streets Task Force.
"It's
very complementary to what our mission is," Nimmo said. "We're a big
organization. The challenge for our leadership is determining how many
resources to allocate to each of those competing priorities."
Richardson,
who formed the first FBI task force in Louisiana to combat violent criminals,
said the new focus will mean shifting resources in ways that are yet to be
seen. The FBI is finalizing a strategy to "surge" resources,
including agents, in certain cities this summer.
"We
won't be able to do all the cities we'd like to at once," Richardson said.
"I firmly believe it will make a difference."
Source:
Business Insider
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