Griffo: Increase COPS funding to enhance public safety in New York and beyond

Utica, N.Y. — With a rise in crime in New York and across the nation, state Sen. Joseph Griffo, R-I-C-ROME, announced Thursday that he has sent a letter to President Joseph Biden and congressional leaders asking for help in the form of increased funding for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program.

“It is my belief that we can fight crime and offer enhanced protections to our communities by increasing funding to the COPS program. Doing so would provide local governments with additional grant opportunities to hire law enforcement who are trained in and knowledgeable of effective community policing practices, techniques, and strategies. As such, I urge you to consider immediate and increased funding for this program,” Griffo stated in his letter.

The COPS program was established in 1994 with the passage of the Violent Criminal Control and Law Enforcement Act and is intended to enhance public safety through the implementation of community policing strategies, according to Griffo. Since its implementation, the program has provided grants to more than 13,000 state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies to fund the hiring and redeployment of more than 134,000 officers, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees the program, Griffo said.

The state senator said that while the COPS program initially received approximately $1.4 billion in annual appropriations during the mid-to-late 1990s, it has received far less in the years since, with $386 million appropriated to the program for Fiscal Year 2021. President Biden has requested approximately $651 million for the program in his Fiscal Year 2022 budget, which would be enough funding for about 2,500 new officers, Griffo says.

“Following a spike in crime across the country during the 1970s and 80s, the COPS program was established to put more police officers on the street and to provide local officials with important resources and tools to fight crime within their communities,” Griffo said in a statement. “As we see incidents of criminality rising once again nationwide, it is imperative that the federal government provide for increased funding for the COPS program, as it did in the 1990s, so that we can reverse this alarming trend now and ensure that our country does not return to where we were several decades ago when crime was rampant.”

HANS PENNINK—ASSOCIATED PRESS Sen. Joseph Griffo, R-utica, speaks to Richard L. Kauffman, Chairman of Energy and Finances for the state of New York during a joint legislative hearing on the the planned closing of the Indian Point Power Plant on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2017, in Albany, N.Y.