KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On Thursday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions made a stop in Kansas City as he promotes ramped up efforts on an initiative more than a decade old, "Project Safe Neighborhoods."
“To work with the communities they serve to develop customize crime strategies that meet the needs of that community,” Sessions said.
The Department of Justice is hiring 300 more federal prosecutors including four that will be assigned to the Western District of Missouri to go after repeat offenders.
“We call them the alpha criminals. The kind of criminals to continue to hammer, hammer will make a neighborhood safer by their absence,” Sessions said.
To help capture those criminals, the Missouri State Highway Patrol is getting a boost to its coffers.
The Department of Justice will give the agency a total of $1.7 million to improve the quality and accessibility of its criminal history records.
“That will have the added benefit of improving the information available to our national firearm background check system,” Sessions said.
The purpose of Project Safe Neighborhood is to partner up with law enforcement from all levels to reduce violent crime.
“Our goal is not to fill up the courts or fill the prisons our goal is not to manage crime or just to punish crime. Our goal is to reduce crime in America to make our communities safer our poor communities safer, in particular, they need our help and with your help that’s what we intend to do,” Sessions said.
Sessions take his message across the state line Friday to the Kansas Law Enforcement training center in Hutchinson at 2:30 p.m.
