FBI violent crime report concerns city officials
An FBI report released Monday shows that violent crime, including murder and assault, increased 1.3 percent nationwide in 2006 for the second year in a row. The Washington-based National League of Cities (NLC) is calling for more funding for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Improvement Act to counter the trend.
The FBI report indicates that smaller cities saw the greatest increase in violent crime, 3.2 percent for cities with populations of 250,000 to 499,999, and an even higher increase in robberies, 8.6 percent. “The FBI data confirms what we already knew: This is not just a big city problem anymore,” says NLC President and Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson.
If Congress funds the program, COPS would provide cities with $1.15 billion in grants for law enforcement programs, Peterson says. “The original COPS law funded more than 118,000 community police officers across 12,900 law enforcement agencies and was a critical factor in driving down crime,” he says.