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What is OJP? Why Trump's doj cuts could hurt you

What is OJP? Why Trump's doj cuts could hurt you

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In the first 100 days of the second administration of Trump, many grants for intervention efforts for violence were removed, part of the financing by the Office for Ministry of Justice.

Amy L. Solomon
| Opinion representative

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The words of the grieving mother are offered forever in my brain: “Don't forget us.”

She belonged to a group of women who had lost children through gun violence that were united in their fear – and in their commitment to protect other mothers from the same unimaginable fate. I met her on a trip to Chicago in 2023 when I visited the Federal Financed programs to interrupt and save cycles of violence.

And on April 22nd, many of the subsidies that pay for violent intervention efforts were eliminated in the first 100 days of the second Trump government, part of a comprehensive reduction in the Federal Ministry of Justice (OJP).

So far, more than 350 grants have been terminated with a total of hundreds of millions of dollars, which affected the security in communities across the country. Even more cuts are on the way.

What is the Office of Justice Programs (OJP)?

So far you may not have heard of OJP. It is the German City Police, their district prison and their state prison – as well as many of the innovative strategies for controlling and prevention that have contributed to increasing crime rates in the early nineties.

If you are a crime victim, OJP will probably pay many of the services you receive. It also finances research work that tells us whether certain programs reduce crime and save taxpayers Dollar.

I worked on three administrations at OJP and managed the office as deputy general prosecutor under the former President Joe Biden. I was also a scholarship holder from outside and worked equally with republican and democratic administrations in relation to public security problems, which often – and ideally – attract support across partisans borders.

And while every new administration, without exception, is moving the equipment in line with its own goals, they see no funds that are already competed and committed.

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Belting is not what happens here. The financing termination letters informed the program providers that they no longer had to be synchronized with the priorities of the new administration to “combat violent crimes” and “the protection of the victims of trade and sexual assault”.

But as I can tell you first -hand, that's exactly what many of these programs do.

Victims and survivors of crime will be exposed to inferior services

The proposed cuts will have far -reaching consequences for public security, the support of the victim, the operations of the judicial system and the crisis reaction. Schools can lose critical support for the protection of the students, while the law enforcement authorities could lose resources to contain violence in rural communities.

Programs that interrupt violence, prevent shootings and support evidence -based police work are forced to scale or close. Efforts to sexual assault – including the processing of residue kits and improvement in reaction strategies – can also be reduced.

Victims and survivors of crime will be reduced access to essential support services, including the support of victims of gender -specific violence, for victims who are deaf or hearing impaired, as well as services for older adults. Specialized services for population groups in need of protection – such as victims of human trafficking – are endangered, so that more people are left behind without help.

And within the judicial system, both prosecutors and defenders will lose training and resources that support the fair and impartial administration of the judiciary.

The cuts will also undermine the reactions to some of our most urgent challenges for public health and security. More people with substance disorders and people who have acute stress will occur without care. Monitoring efforts – such as persecution of deaths in custody or to prevent sexual abuse in correctional facilities – lose important resources and protective measures. In addition, the research of mass shootings and the recognition of the reduction in crime is shortened.

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In short, many of the resources that keep our communities safely, strong and healthy were lowered overnight. Jobs and fate of entire organizations are at stake. Life will be at risk.

There is never a good time to depict in public security. However, these cuts feel particularly bad when our country continues to recover from a painful increase in violent crime in the early Covid 19 pandemic years. By the end of 2024, the violent crime rates had finally dropped to the pre-Pandemic level or below it. The recent findings of the Council for Criminal Justice showed themselves and the early figures from the 2025 document continued.

These national trends are promising, but the Council for Criminal Casting experts warns that progress was unevenly that there are too many municipalities – urban, suburban and rural – still struggling with fentanyl and unacceptable high rates such as murder and motor vehicle theft.

The Federal Government must continue to be innovative and invest in evidence -based interventions that tackle these problems and have an impact on safe and flourishing communities.

There is nothing partisanes: Now it is time to remove effective, evidence-based strategies to reduce crime-not.

Perhaps this will happen if the full extent of the cuts comes to light. After all, the congress created and appropriated funds for many of the released programs, and the leadership of Capitol Hill seems to have been blind by the cuts.

If there was so much at stake, we cannot afford to dismiss the profound costs of the promised “savings”. We can and have to do better for the mothers I met in Chicago, and the countless other Americans who have already lost too much.

Amy L. Solomon, Senior Fellow in the NonPartisan Council on Criminal Justice, supervised the federal judge's scholarship as a US deputy general prosecutor in the Biden administration. The views expressed in this piece are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect that of the Council for Criminal Justice.

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