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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowFunding amounting to $375,000 has been granted to the Muncie Police Department for hiring purposes, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana Zachary A. Myers announced Thursday.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced the distribution of more than $139 million in grant funding through the department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services COPS Hiring Program Thursday. The awards provide direct funding to 183 law enforcement agencies across the country for the hiring of 1,066 additional full-time law enforcement professionals.
“We are committed to providing police departments with the resources needed to help ensure community safety and build community trust,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement. “The grants we are announcing today will enable law enforcement agencies across the country to hire more than 1,000 additional officers to support vitally important community oriented policing programs.”
CHP, an award program intended to reduce crime and advance public safety through community policing, provides funds directly to law enforcement agencies to hire new or rehire additional career law enforcement officers.
Half of the grants awarded will use the funding to focus on building legitimacy and trust between law enforcement and communities; 41 agencies will seek to address high rates of gun violence; 21 will focus on other areas of violence; and 19 will focus CHP resources on combating hate and domestic extremism or supporting police-based responses to persons in crisis, according to the DOJ.
More than $14 billion has been invested by COPS to advance community policing since 1994, including grants awarded to more than 13,000 state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies to fund the hiring and redeployment of more than 135,000 officers.
“The funds awarded to the City of Muncie to hire additional police officers is an important investment in the safety of the citizens of Muncie as well as the police department that serves them,” Myers, who was sworn in earlier this week, said in a statement.
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