[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 64 (Tuesday, May 8, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E735]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 
                                  2013

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. GERALD E. CONNOLLY

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                          Tuesday, May 8, 2012

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the state of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 5326) making 
     appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, 
     Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending 
     September 30, 2013, and for other purposes:

  Mr. CONNOLLY of Virginia. Mr. Chair, I rise to express my great 
disappointment that H.R. 5326, the Commerce, Justice, Science and 
Related Agencies Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2013, does not 
preserve funding for vital community gang prevention, which has enjoyed 
bipartisan support in the past.
  This bill eliminates a $5 million grant program for our state and 
local law enforcement partners that supported competitive, evidence-
based programs to reduce gun crime and gang violence. It also 
eliminates a $5 million grant program that supported gang and youth 
violence education, prevention and intervention in our communities.
  These grants are essential for helping our local and state partners 
contain the growth in gang violence in their communities and educate 
young people about the perils of joining a gang. In my Northern 
Virginia district, we used these funds to partner local law enforcement 
agencies with their state and federal counterparts in a regional gang 
task force, which is coordinating prevention and enforcement efforts.
  A decade ago, gang participation and gang-related crime was on an 
upswing in our community. Thanks to this federal partnership and other 
local initiatives--like the expansion of after school programs, which I 
helped lead at the local level--we were able to stem the growth of gang 
activity in our community. In fact, we reduced gang participation by 50 
percent among our students. It is because of this partnership that 
Northern Virginia continues to have one of the lowest crime rates in 
the nation.
  I appreciate the Committee acknowledging in the report for this bill 
the importance of partnering with local and state law enforcement 
agencies to combat the proliferation of multi-jurisdictional gangs. 
That is why these two competitive grant programs, which provide 
critical gang prevention support in our communities, ought to be 
maintained.
  I urge my colleagues to reconsider these unfortunate cuts and revisit 
this issue when we ultimately go to conference with the Senate to fund 
the Justice Department for Fiscal Year 2013. We have stood shoulder-to-
shoulder with our local and state partners to prevent gang violence, 
and we cannot step away from that partnership now when gang violence 
continues to be a significant threat in so many communities, as the 
Committee itself acknowledges.

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