Thank you, Amy. It is great to be here with you and the Attorney General, whose support for communities and law enforcement is the backbone of everything we do at the Justice Department. And it is wonderful to have so many U.S. Attorneys in the room — you and your offices are working every day to build partnerships and keep your communities safe.
Amy, I want to thank your team at our Office of Justice Programs, in particular Director Karhlton Moore and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), for putting together this convening and for your efforts to equip our law enforcement and community partners with resources to disrupt violence and end cycles of trauma.
I want to commend our partners, here in Indianapolis and across the country, for the critical work you are doing to reduce violence and advance safety — whether you are a police officer sworn to protect and serve, a prosecutor working to keep your community safe, a community leader or service provider dedicated to reaching those in need, or a local leader pledged to safeguard the welfare of your constituents. Your jobs are difficult, they can be dangerous, and make no mistake — they are utterly indispensable.
As a nation, I fear we have become much too accustomed to gun violence and the senseless destruction of lives. Mass violence is an all-too-common event. Just as unsettling are the countless shootings that occur on our streets every day in America.
As Associate Attorney General, I have met with families whose children were killed in the horrific mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, with mothers who lost their children to gun violence in Chicago, with survivors and family members from the Buffalo, New York, Tops Supermarket massacre. I remember the photos they shared with me, of loved ones whose lives were cut short, and I carry their stories with me — their grief, their anger, their frustration.
Guns claimed the lives of more than 48,000 people in 2022, including almost 20,000 homicides. Firearms have been the leading cause of death among children in this country since 2020. For far too many kids, the promise of a bright future, which should be every child’s birthright, is snatched away by a gun.
To the rising toll of gun crimes and mass tragedies we add the mounting tally of hate in our country. Hate crimes rose 12% between 2020 and 2021, and 2022 saw the highest reported levels yet. This is intolerable, and it violates everything we stand for as a nation.
It must be said that violent crime, as reported by law enforcement departments across the nation, is down. Despite upticks during the pandemic, the long downward trend that began in the early 90s is resuming. But we also know that the rate of nonfatal violent victimizations, many of which are never reported to police, rose last year — though, again, the rate is far below its peak three decades ago.
We must also acknowledge that the problem of violent crime is most pronounced in communities that have been marginalized and historically underserved. Neighborhoods that have long absorbed the costs associated with disinvestment are the ones most likely to face the regular threat of violence.
None of this is news to those of you in this room. You see these problems firsthand, and the sad reality is that too many of you have personal experience with mass violence, hate crimes, and the epidemic of gun violence, which is especially acute in communities of color. And many of you have been affected directly, either through exposure to trauma as a first responder or as someone who has personally experienced violence. The price of violent crime in America — economic, social, and emotional — is simply beyond measure.
But here, with our shared mission, is a seed of hope.
The programs you are here representing — from the National Public Safety Partnership, to Project Safe Neighborhoods, to the work in rural communities and through our Crime Gun Intelligence Centers — these efforts are built on a sturdy foundation of partnership — between law enforcement and the community, between federal and local partners, and between public safety professionals, community leaders, and people with lived experience.
I believe that this focus on partnership and collaboration is the key to meeting this moment. For too long, we have looked to law enforcement alone to solve violent crime. Police officers do all they can with the tools they have, often under extremely difficult circumstances, and they take heroic measures on behalf of the people and communities they serve. But law enforcement is also in the midst of a historic recruitment and retention crisis. We at the Justice Department are committed to finding and funding creative solutions to this difficult problem, including through our COPS Hiring Program, which just awarded $217 million to 394 agencies across the country to hire a total of 1,730 new officers this year.
But even without this crisis, we know that violence is a complex challenge that cannot be fully resolved by arrests and incarceration. Addressing violent crime requires every member of the community, a deep investment of social capital, and a strong commitment from all sectors.
That is why we at the Justice Department are committing to approaches that complement enforcement and elevate the role of the community. Two of the four core principles of the Department’s Comprehensive Strategy for Reducing Violent Crime are about building trust and empowering communities: the first is that violent crime strategies must be based on a foundation of trust between law enforcement and communities; and the second is that we can prevent violence through investments in community-based violence prevention and intervention programs. These principles are important because public safety requires law enforcement legitimacy, community leadership, and a belief that equal justice is possible.
But these are not just lofty ideas. We are putting our money where our mouth is, and — working with you, in your communities — putting these strategies into practice.
We have awarded nearly $200 million for community violence intervention and prevention programs across the country. “Community violence intervention and prevention” does not describe one particular kind of program, but rather, a comprehensive approach that is helping to change the way we talk about and address gun and other serious violence. In some programs, credible messengers with deep ties to their communities are trained to work with those most at risk of engaging in violence. Other programs focus on workforce development, social services, or trauma-informed care.
These are programs like the Urban Peace Institute in Los Angeles, where they are training and deploying peacemakers to work alongside law enforcement officers in underserved areas of the city. There’s the work in Lake County, Illinois, led by the State Attorney’s Office, that leans on violence interrupters to disrupt the cycle of crime and retaliation among youth. And there’s the Osborne Association in the Bronx, which provides conflict resolution, cognitive behavioral therapy, transitional employment, and other services to young people at risk for gun-crime involvement.
We know that a crisis of violence — whether one large-scale event or gun crime in our streets — places enormous demands on local resources. It shakes the community, it can bring business to a stand-still, and it leads to confusion, frustration, and fatigue for leaders as well as community members. We cannot yet anticipate and prevent every crisis, but in the meantime, we can increase our capacity for resilience and put our communities in the best position to respond and recover.
The Justice Department is working on all fronts to bring you resources to tackle these monumental challenges. Federal agents from ATF, the U.S. Marshals, the DEA, and the FBI are working with local, state, and Tribal partners. We provide peer-to-peer assistance to law enforcement leaders through the Mass Violence Advisory Initiative supported by BJA. We support victims of mass violence through the FBI’s Victim Services Division and our Office for Victims of Crime, and are continuously learning how to more effectively respond to victims and survivors.
We are making crucial investments in violence reduction programs, including through the Rural Violent Crime Reduction and National Crime Gun Intelligence Center Initiatives. We are providing research, training, and technical assistance through PSP and through BJA’s National Training and Technical Assistance Center, to broaden and build your base of expertise.
We support law enforcement agencies with targeted technical assistance, critical incident reviews, and organizational assessments, through our revitalized Collaborative Reform Initiative (CRI-TAC), managed by our Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office), in partnership with the International Association of Chiefs of Police and eight other leading law enforcement organizations. To date, we have invested over $12.7 million in CRI-TAC and served more than 800 jurisdictions through over 1,016 technical assistance engagements. This year alone, CRI-TAC has assisted over 160 sites.
And we are brokering alliances, across disciplines and across levels of government, to give us the best chance of reducing violence in our communities.
We are proud of this work, and even more proud to be doing it with you. Your commitment to curbing violence and your willingness to do what it takes to achieve that goal are inspiring.
Every day, I think about the parents who have lost children, kids who have lost parents, and the first responders and communities grappling with the after-effects of violence. Some days I fear people are becoming numb to it all. But based on what I see here in Indianapolis, I am hopeful that as we work together on the underlying problems that lead to these tragedies, we can learn from one another, and lean on one another, and ultimately work toward the goal of safer, stronger, thriving communities.
Thank you for all that you do.