Justice Department selects four jurisdictions for nearly $300 million Model Cities Initiative
Rights & JusticeWell-covered
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The Facts
- The Justice Department selected four jurisdictions for its Model Cities Initiative.
- The selected jurisdictions are Jacksonville, East Baton Rouge Parish, Jackson and St. Louis.
- The four jurisdictions will share nearly $300 million in federal funding.
- The Model Cities Initiative is intended to reduce violent crime and improve public safety.
- Funding may support law-enforcement staffing, technology, equipment and community services.
- Individual grant allocations for the four jurisdictions had not been disclosed.
Context
What is the Model Cities Initiative?
It is a Justice Department initiative that provides federal investment for locally driven strategies to reduce violent crime, strengthen public safety and coordinate law-enforcement efforts. Fox News STL.News RedHillsMSNews.com
How were the jurisdictions selected?
The four winners were selected from nearly 50 applicants that competed to show how they would reduce violent crime and strengthen local law enforcement. Fox News STLtoday.com
What could the funding pay for?
Reported eligible uses include hiring, training and retaining personnel; equipment and technology; and mental-health, substance-use and community-support services. NOLA Fox2Now 100 Percent Fed Up
Where Left and Right agree, and where they split
- Where Left and Right agree
- Nearly $300 million is substantial public money aimed at reducing violent crime in four named jurisdictions, and both framings treat that goal as legitimate.
- Where Left and Right split
- Accountability for undisclosed spending, or trusting that funding aimed at staffing and equipment delivers safety.
- Why they won’t converge
- The divide is one of trust in institutions: whether an administration-run, discretionary grant program will be administered with transparency and accountability or whether results-focused funding justifies withholding allocation details until later.
How left and right read it
Nearly $300 million flowing into Jacksonville, East Baton Rouge Parish, Jackson and St. Louis is real money for communities that have carried the cost of violence, so the public deserves to know how it gets spent, yet the individual allocations remain undisclosed.
Protection from violence is the first thing a government owes the people who pay for it, and nearly $300 million aimed squarely at reducing violent crime in Jacksonville, East Baton Rouge Parish, Jackson and St. Louis honors that obligation. Because the money can go to staffing, technology and equipment, it lands where local departments actually feel the strain. That is the test. Order bought, not programs funded.
“The awards could represent a sizable addition to the cities' existing law enforcement budgets.” — Fox News
The receipts — 11 sources
Independent coverage (11)
The news, read by both sides.
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