Deadly decisions? Trump cuts gut anti-crime programs as summer violence looms

• The Trump administration rescinded about $500 million in public safety grants awarded to over 550 organizations nationwide.
• Community violence intervention programs, credited with reducing gun crime, face staff and service cuts due to the funding loss.
• Experts fear the cuts, coming as crime is expected to spike during the summer, could reverse recent declines in violent crime and cost countless lives.

In Detroit's Warrendale and Cody Rouge neighborhoods, where gun violence can plague the streets in the hot summer months, a half-dozen violence prevention workers from FORCE Detroit have been checking in on young people at risk, visiting their families and keeping tabs on social media so they can mediate conflicts before they turn deadly.

Like similar programs across the country, their work has proven incredibly effective: Just a year after FORCE Detroit launched as a nonprofit in 2023, shootings and homicides dropped 52% in its service area, according to city officials. The Justice Department awarded the program a $2 million grant in September − money meant to finance its work through 2027.

But within months, the Trump administration ripped most of that money away, along with about $500 million in public safety grants pledged to more than 550 organizations in nearly all 50 states, according to an analysis from the Council on Criminal Justice.

The cuts have forced community violence intervention groups across the country to cut staff and services, putting the future of their work in jeopardy. Experts told USA TODAY they fear cutting funding right before summer − when violent crime often spikes − could reverse recent declines and cost young lives.

“I mean, it's already happening in cities around the country," said Daniel Webster, professor at Johns Hopkins who studies gun violence reduction programs. "I was at a meeting yesterday in Washington, D.C., where some of the programs have been cut, and people in those communities were reporting increases in violence already. And it has only been a month.”

FORCE Detroit and other organizations hit by the cuts filed a class action lawsuit to force the government to restore their funding, but the prospects are unclear. The Justice Department told USA TODAY the office is working with organizations to review their appeals and restore cuts when warranted. Seven victim services grants have been restored so far, according to the Council on Criminal Justice report. As temperatures rise, kids start summer break and crime is poised to spike, most are still waiting.

Violence intervention fuels decline in gun deaths

Community violence intervention programs based in schools, hospitals and high-crime neighborhoods have existed in some form for decades, Webster said.

They don’t guarantee a dip in gun violence, but Webster noted that when he studied programs in Baltimore, he found a nearly 25% reduction in shootings in some neighborhoods where they were implemented. 

“That’s a pretty big deal,” he said.

The federal government began investing in the programs for “the first time in a really large way” after the racial reckoning of 2020, he said. The investments likely helped contribute to declines in gun violence since the pandemic. Gun deaths declined 3% to 46,728 in 2023, down from more than 48,000 in 2022, according to provisional data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The 2023 toll still marked the third-highest number of gun-related deaths ever recorded in the United States.

Webster had planned to continue studying violence intervention program outcomes in Baltimore, but that grant was canceled, too.

“Our ability to measure impact was cut off," he said.

'An unprecedented move' rocks communities nationwide

A few weeks after he was released from a 14-year-long prison sentence, DuJuan “Zoe” Kennedy found an opportunity that would change his life.

Kennedy began volunteering with FORCE Detroit. He rose through the ranks to become the organization’s executive director and helped craft a program to combat the high rates of gun violence plaguing young people in the neighborhood where he grew up.

When the administration terminated its grant, the organization had to cancel community events and lay off three violence prevention workers who had forged deep ties and built trust with high-risk people, according to the lawsuit. Burnout among remaining staff escalated as workload increased, and they had to inform the local coaches, mentors, licensed therapists and trainers FORCE Detroit had enlisted that their funding had been eliminated.

Kennedy said the decision to cut the organization's funding when it has proven effective at reducing violence left him confused and disturbed.

“We should be able to continue to save lives,” Kennedy said. “I don't understand why anyone in this country would want to discourage or interrupt a group of community members or organizations that are dedicated to saving human lives, preventing trauma.”

Kennedy's grant was among those authorized for community violence prevention programs and research under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act passed in 2022 during the Biden administration, according to the Council on Criminal Justice report.

Amy Solomon, lead author of the report and former leader of the DOJ's grantmaking agency under Biden, called the slashing of millions already awarded to the community groups “an unprecedented move.”

“We know and expect new administrations to have their own priorities and to execute on those priorities, but it's usually the future budgets and future policies,” she said. “There's just no precedent, at the Department of Justice at least, to stop existing grants right in their tracks and put off the resources that have been competed for, hard-won, promised, expected, planned for, etcetera, without any notice at all.

“These cuts are coming at a time when we need to see more, not less, programming that's focused on the highest-risk youth.”

Could Trump cuts lead to ‘rebound’ in gun violence and deaths?

Multiple studies have found that shootings and other violent crimes tend to rise with the temperatures as people spend more time together outside and kids are let out of school for the summer. The United States has experienced five mass shootings each Independence Day on average over the past decade − more than on any other day of the year, according to an analysis of Gun Violence Archive data by researcher James Alan Fox of Northeastern University.

Webster is studying violence reduction programs in Washington, D.C., thanks to funding from a private foundation. He said he worries the DOJ cuts “could lead to a rebound after really enormous progress."

Chandra Dawson is among those in the district already feeling the impact. 

Dawson, executive director of Peace For DC, had planned to quadruple the size of her violence prevention program by 2026 with the help of Justice Department grant money. But after losing more than $1.4 million, those plans have been put on hold as they work to find funding to continue supporting their 10 current participants.

Dawson said program participants are still able to meet weekly with a therapist and workforce development coach, but the program has lost partners who provided a visible presence in the city’s Ward 8 and regular check-ins. Gun crimes in Washington are down 47% compared with the same period in 2024, but Ward 8 continues to experience the most gun violence, according to city data. Last summer, more than 120 people were killed or assaulted.

“The inability to be able to be on the ground and be those eyes and ears and interventionists during such a critical time will result in what we already knew may be a spike, but it probably will be more exacerbated,” Dawson said.

Trump pledges to 'unleash' law enforcement

In the form emails announcing the grant terminations, the DOJ said it had “changed its priorities” to focus on supporting law enforcement operations, "protecting American children" and "combating violent crime."

“Discretionary funds that are not aligned with the administration’s priorities are subject to review and reallocation,” Natalie Baldassarre, a spokesperson for the department and its Office of Justice Programs, said in a statement to USA TODAY. “OJP is committed to working with organizations to resolve any issues, to hear any appeal, and to restore funding as appropriate.” 

K. Durell Cowan, director of Memphis-based HEAL 901, said he is one of the program leaders going through the appeal process to restore more than $1.7 million in federal grant money.

Cowan said he doesn't want to undercut law enforcement −he just wants to continue doing public safety work that supplements what police do to combat crime. Police, he said, respond to violence. Nonprofits like his work to prevent it from happening in the first place.

He pointed to an apartment complex in Memphis, Tennessee, that once topped the list for most calls to the Memphis Police Department. In the first six months after HEAL 901's violence intervention program launched, an analysis found, violent crime dropped by 29%. But crime began to rebound after county officials failed to renew funding for the program in June 2023.

As the program grapples with the latest blow to its budget, Cowan said he’s doing everything he can to continue serving the community and making payroll for his 16 staff members every two weeks.

“I have to suppress the panic, stress, anxiety every day because I have a staff that's looking at me for leadership and guidance,” Cowan said.

It’s not clear how the Trump administration plans to redistribute the money taken from Cowan's HEAL 901 and other community organizations. But on April 28, just days after organizations received notice their grants had been terminated, Trump issued an executive order pledging to "strengthen and unleash" law enforcement and increase their pay and benefits.

Both Solomon and Webster said redirecting resources to law enforcement isn’t an adequate substitute for the efforts of community violence intervention groups.

“It's not as if these funds are being used for different mechanisms that will be equally or more effective in reducing violence,” Webster said. “The opposite is the case.”