Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Monday $98,495,397 in grant funding through the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services COPS Hiring Program, including $250,000 for Hamilton County. The Attorney General announced funding awards to 179 law enforcement agencies across the nation, which allows those agencies to hire 802 additional full-time law enforcement officers.
Two of these grants went to east Tennessee agencies. The Blount County Sheriff’s Department received $746,117 to fund six officers and the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department received $250,000 to fund two officers.
“Both the Blount County and Hamilton County Sheriff’s Departments have a long history of working with the U.S Attorney’s Office to develop cases for successful federal prosecution," said U.S. Attorney Nancy Stallard Harr. "We are very pleased that they were chosen as two of 179 agencies across the country to receive these grants, which will allow them to hire additional officers and enhance their efforts to reduce crime in the Eastern District of Tennessee."
“Cities and states that cooperate with federal law enforcement make all of us safer by helping remove dangerous criminals from our communities,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions. “Today, the Justice Department announced that 80 percent of this year’s COPS Hiring Program grantees have agreed to cooperate with federal immigration authorities in their detention facilities. I applaud their commitment to the rule of law and to ending violent crime, including violent crime stemming from illegal immigration. I continue to encourage every jurisdiction in America to collaborate with federal law enforcement and help us make this country safer.”
CHP provides grant funding directly to state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies to support hiring additional law enforcement officers for three years to address specific crime problems through community policing strategies.
In September, the Justice Department announced additional priority consideration criteria for FY2017 COPS Office grants. Applicants were notified that their application would receive additional points in the application scoring process by certifying their willingness to cooperate with federal immigration authorities within their detention facilities. Cooperation may include providing access to detention facilities for an interview of aliens in the jurisdiction’s custody and providing advance notice of an alien’s release from custody upon request. Eighty percent of the awarded agencies received additional points based on their certifications of willingness to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
The COPS Office awards grants to hire community policing officers, develop and test innovative policing strategies, and provide training and technical assistance to community members, local government leaders, and all levels of law enforcement. Since 1994, the COPS Office has invested more than $14 billion to help advance community policing.