Philadelphia police to get some federal stimulus dollars
Thursday, June 18th, 2009
By: Susan Phillips
sphillips@whyy.org
Philadelphia will be getting $13.5 million in stimulus money for police and public safety efforts. The funds resulted from the first collaborative effort among several city departments.
The money will be used to purchase more tasers, save jobs in the court system, and train ex-offenders for green jobs.
The money is funneled through the Justice Department's Byrne Grant program. Critics of the program say the money has bankrolled the war on drugs, which fueled the rise in the prison population.
But Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Everett Gillison says a large amount of the money will be going to crime prevention.
Gillison: When you sit down and look at this administration's approach to public safety it is not and has never been a police only strategy. It is a collaboration. It's a collaboration between the courts and all members of the criminal justice sector.
The largest chunk of money $2.5 million will create a "Real Time Crime Center" at police headquarters providing detailed analysis of a crime scene, its victims and relevant crime patterns.