Warwick, RI – The Warwick Police Department has been awarded $500,000 to hire four new officers thanks to the The U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Office.
The U.S. Department of Justice’s COPS Hiring Program (CHP) grants will help put more police officers on the streets, and help the city fill budget gaps.
The Woonsocket Police Department will receive $125,000 from the program to hire one officer.
U.S. Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse and U.S. Representatives Jim Langevin and David Cicilline recently announced the $625,000 for the two law enforcement agencies.
“As a long-time supporter of the COPS program, I am pleased that Warwick and Woonsocket are receiving this federal funding to help put more cops on the beat. Our police officers do an outstanding job and these funds will give local police departments critical resources to continue their important work,” said U.S. Senator Jack Reed, who helped create the COPS program in the 1990s and serves on the Appropriations subcommittee which oversees COPS funding.
This year’s CHP grants provide 75 percent funding for approved entry-level salaries and benefits for three years for newly-hired, full-time sworn officer positions (including filling existing unfunded vacancies) or for rehired officers who have been laid off, or are scheduled to be laid off on a future date, as a result of local budget cuts.
About $123 million in CHP grants were awarded to 215 different local law enforcement agencies across the country. Grantees for the 2014 hiring program were selected based on their fiscal needs, local crime rates, and their community policing plans.
Author: Rob Borkowski
Rob has worked as reporter and editor for several publications, including The Kent County Daily Times and Coventry Courier, before working for Gatehouse in MA then moving home with Patch Media. Now he's publisher and editor of WarwickPost.com. Contact him at [email protected] with tips, press releases, advertising inquiries, and concerns.
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