Board approves $20M in grants to boost law enforcement, prosecutors in Virginia

The Virginia Criminal Justice Services Board is pushing $20 million toward efforts to hire more prosecutors and address manpower shortages in local police and sheriff’s departments.

The office of Gov. Glenn Youngkin is trying to frame it as actions toward reducing violent crime, but the issue is more basic than that.

In Waynesboro, for example, the police force is operating with roughly 30 percent of its jobs open because of low pay.

Similar issues with low pay are hampering law enforcement and prosecutors in several Virginia localities, making the issue less about reducing violent crime, and more about just making it so that the criminal justice system can simply work from day to day.

But of course, Youngkin, who thinks he’s running for president, had to give the effort a cool name, Operation Bold Blue Line, and make it all about violent crime.

Whatever.

The grants approved by the Criminal Justice Board include:

• $7.4 million to 12 Virginia cities experiencing high levels of violent crime for law enforcement training and equipment.
• $5.0 million for the Virginia Hospital Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative to provide services to victims of violent crime in hospitals with the goal of reducing future incidences of violence-related injuries and homicides.
• $2.6 million from the Operation Ceasefire Grant Fund to hire six additional prosecutors, and three group violence intervention coordinators.
• $2.4 million for the 11 Regional Criminal Justice Academies to purchase equipment and supplies for firearm training scenario simulators.
• $2.3 million from the Operation Ceasefire Grant Fund to implement violent crime reduction strategies, train law enforcement officers, and award grants to organizations engaged in group violence intervention efforts.
• Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Victim Fund grants totaling $998,750.
• Improving the Criminal Justice Response Grant Program totaling $693,347.
• Sexual Assault Services Program grants totaling $667,576.
• Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention grants totaling $658,476.
• Hate Crimes Grant Program totaling $372,238.

$148,600 for two additional Option V Academies which offer expedited law enforcement training for officers sworn or previously sworn in other states who would like to become a sworn officer in Virginia.