FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: James Arnold or Mary Collins Atkinson (202) 224-2353
July 21, 2021 

Cotton Introduces Fund the Police Act

Washington, D.C. — Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) today introduced the Fund the Police Act to reallocate $50 billion in unspent funding from the American Rescue Plan Act to establish a Law Enforcement Support Trust Fund at the United States Department of Justice and to support two federal grant programs to hire, train, and equip more state and local police officers. Text of the bill may be found here.

“Some Democrats seem eager to rewrite history and hide their advocacy for ‘defunding the police,’ but that’s exactly what they’ve tried to do. My bill will immediately fund two federal grant programs to support police officers and establish a trust to maintain these grants for decades to come,” said Cotton.

The Fund the Police Act will reallocate $50 billion from the American Rescue Plan Act to:

  • Immediately provide $1 billion each to the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program (Byrne JAG Grants) and the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Office Grants.
  • Create a Law Enforcement Support Trust Fund at the U.S. Department of Justice, which can be used to supply an additional $500 million per year for each of the Byrne JAG and COPS Office grant programs in future years.

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