The Federal Government's Role in Funding and Equipping Law Enforcement

• Author: Jessica Williams
• Posted: 2024-02-04

After the tragic death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police has shone a spotlight on law enforcement throughout the country. People are beginning to ask difficult questions in order to deconstruct how the police keep communities safe and whether they do so in an evenhanded manner. Many are beginning to learn how law enforcement is funded and supplied. For the first time, some are beginning to understand the federal government's role in funding the police through law enforcement grants and the transfer of equipment.

While law enforcement derives the bulk of their funding from the cities and states in which they operate, they can also get significant resources from the federal government each year. This comes in the form of money as well as surplus military equipment that the government gives to local police forces. This provides some of the heavier weaponry that police departments have.

Department of Justice Grant Programs for Law Enforcement

Even though Congress does not directly give money to localities for policing purposes, it has created programs that provide funding for policing in general. One of the primary means of this funding is through a Department of Justice grants program that allows local police forces to apply for funding. However, while many articles have talked about the fact that federal dollars fund police departments, they also create the misperception that the federal government may be on an equal footing when it comes to paying for the police. The DOJ grant programs add up to a small share of policing budgets, even if the local jurisdictions are able to obtain the funding.

There are several large federal government grant programs for police forces. One major program is the Community Oriented Policing Services. This was begun in 1994 and has provided $14 billion in total funding to date. The program was actually started with the intent of building community-wide policing, which is viewed as an improvement in the police force that better enables it to serve the community in a compassionate and constructive manner. In 2020, the total amount of funding for the program was $400 million. This year, 596 police departments received grants under the program, making the average size of each grant less than $1 million. This is actually a program that most activists support because it reforms the way that many police departments interact with their communities.

Another major DOJ program is the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program. This program does provide grants to supplement local police forces and corrections departments. This program is also not a large part of police funding. In 2019, the program awarded just over a quarter of a billion dollars in grants.

The Byrne program is slightly more problematic when it comes to the federal government's role in funding police departments. The DOJ is able to insert provisions into grant solicitations that would disqualify certain police departments from receiving grants. This can incorporate political priorities and mean that jurisdictions are shut out of money based on prevailing political ideas of the time. For example, DOJ held up grant funding to Colorado because the President demanded more stringent enforcement of immigration laws. It was only more recently that the funding was released to the state's agencies.

The Federal Government Grants Surplus Military Equipment to Police Departments

One of the more controversial grant programs that has come to light recently does not involve money, but rather involves equipment. Many critics have decried the militarization of police departments. These police forces often do not buy the heave weapons themselves. Instead, they are given these by the federal government, which no longer has a need for the surplus equipment.

The program was actually begun under the Clinton Administration, but President Trump loosened some of the restrictions to make it easier for police departments to get military equipment. Police departments have been given a heavy bomb-resistant vehicle known as a Mine Resistant Armored Protection vehicle (MRAP). President Obama had tried to reform the program through an Executive Order, tightening restrictions on which equipment police forces could receive. However, in 2017, President Trump repealed the Executive Order. Law enforcement can also get advanced military equipment such as night-vision goggles. Many have tied the equipment that police are given to the growing militarization of police and the move away from community-based policing. Now, police are given high-caliber ammunition and other lethal equipment for free by the federal government.