Violent Incident Clearance and Technological Investigative Methods Act of 2022

Floor Speech

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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1377, I call up the bill (H.R. 5768) to direct the Attorney General to establish a grant program to establish, create, and administer the violent incident clearance and technology investigative method, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

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Mr. NADLER. 5768.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5768, the VICTIM Act of 2022, is bipartisan legislation that would help law enforcement improve clearance rates for homicides, rapes, sexual assaults, kidnappings, and nonfatal shootings.

As communities continue to face increased gun violence and violent crime, this bill is a vital step toward improving public safety.

Again, let me be clear: Democrats have always stood for equitable funding for law enforcement. In fact, Democratic-led cities and States have consistently funded law enforcement at much higher per capita rates than Republican-led cities, while also recognizing the need for law enforcement accountability and improving public trust.

To address the challenges our law enforcement agencies are facing, this bill would provide funding and support for agencies to hire and train detectives and investigators to improve case clearance rates.

Low clearance rates not only prevent victims from accessing justice, but they also damage the public's trust in law enforcement. By investing in the personnel and technology needed to solve cases of homicide and other serious crimes, agencies can help build public confidence and improve community safety.

In providing State, local, and Tribal agencies with additional resources, the VICTIM Act will equip agencies to better respond to and investigate these serious crimes, bringing justice for victims and keeping our communities safe.

I thank Representative Val Demings and her bipartisan cosponsors for their leadership on this issue and for introducing this important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. NADLER. Jackson Lee), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, this is a victims' act. So many of us have worked with our law enforcement and victims.

The VICTIM Act would provide $100 million annually in grant funding to law enforcement agencies and prosecuting officers to bolster their ability to investigate and clear cases of homicide, rape, sexual assault, kidnapping, and nonfatal shootings. All have family members that are left wondering and in pain. This VICTIM Act, as someone who has always worked with victims, ensures that they are not left empty.

Homicide clearance rates, in particular, have dropped consistently since the 1960s, leaving many unsolved cases and many victims and their families still searching. I want my colleagues to have a heart. They are still searching for justice.

This legislation by Congresswoman Demings addresses the challenges our law enforcement agencies are facing in solving homicides and other violent crimes in red States and blue States. This critical funding would help agencies improve their clearance rates through various means. It helps retain detectives. It helps in training personnel.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. It provides for low clearance rates, which disproportionately affect victims and families of victims of marginalized communities. Not only do they prevent victims from accessing justice, but they also damage the public's trust.

I have given money to help victims, and victims say: ``Do you know what? We are left alone,'' the victims or families. ``We are left alone to address this disparity.''

This bill will help not leave them alone, keep pressure on finding that culprit, that individual who violated them, that criminal who has violated them, and also by providing agencies with additional resources.

This $100 million is to help victims. Is there anybody on the floor that wants to join in a bipartisan manner to help victims or to work with law enforcement who are on the job, who are saying: We need help because victims need help, and we certainly need to solve the crimes for these families who are longing to understand about their loved ones who have been raped, assaulted, and those who have lost their lives.

I remind my colleagues of the father and baby in my community who were found dead. They need help.

Support the VICTIM Act.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5768, Violent Incident Clearance and Technological Investigative Methods Act of 2022'' or the ``VICTIM Act,'' that would provide $100 million annually in grant funding to law enforcement agencies and prosecuting offices to bolster their ability to investigate and clear cases of homicide, rape, sexual assault, kidnapping, and non-fatal shootings.

As someone who has always supported law enforcement, let me state plainly--this bill is about funding law enforcement agencies--not defunding them.

Homicide clearance rates, in particular, have dropped consistently since the 1960's leaving many unsolved cases and many victims and their families still searching for justice. In 2020, the clearance rate for homicides fell to roughly 50 percent while pressure on law enforcement officials increased--leading to calls for more funding for overburdened departments with sizable caseloads and depleted resources.

To address the challenges our law enforcement agencies are facing in solving homicides and other violent crime--in red states and blue states--this critical funding would help agencies improve their clearance rates through various means, including:

ensuring retention of detectives assigned to violent crimes;

hiring and training additional detectives and investigators dedicated specifically to investigating homicides and other violent crimes;

hiring and training personnel for collecting, processing, and testing forensic evidence; and

hiring and training personnel to analyze violent crime trends.

Low clearance rates--which disproportionately affect victims and families of victims of marginalized communities--not only prevent victims from accessing justice, but they also damage the public's trust in law enforcement.

To address this disparity, funding in the bill could be used to train personnel to address the needs of victims and family members and develop competitive and evidence-based programs and practices to improve both clearance rates and victim services--thereby rebuilding public confidence and improving community safety.

The bill would also ensure victim services programs are funded, staffed, and trained, and that they provide restorative support to victims and their families.

Investing in personnel as well as the technology needed to solve cases of homicide and other violent crime, also helps build public confidence and improve community safety.

That is why H.R. 5768's funding can be used to acquire, upgrade, or replace investigative or evidence processing technology or equipment.

By providing agencies with additional resources--drawing from an authorized amount of $100 million dollars--the VICTIM Act would equip agencies to better respond to and investigate serious crimes-- delivering justice to victims and making our communities safer.

I commend Representative Val Demings for championing this thoughtful, bipartisan legislation and urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter dated November 1, 2021, from the Major Cities Chiefs Association and an article from Third Way titled ``The Red City Defund Police Problem.'' Major Cities Chiefs Association, November 1, 2021. Hon. Val Demings, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Rep. Demings: I write on behalf of the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) to register our strong support for H.R. 5768, the VICTIM Act. The MCCA is a professional organization of police executives representing the largest cities in the United States and Canada.

Nearly every major city in the United States is contending with a rise in violent crime. According to the MCCA's most recent Violent Crime Survey, comparing midyear 2020 with midyear 2021, homicides are up roughly 20 percent in major cities. In addition, most MCCA members have reported significant increases in gun violence, evidenced by the uptick in aggravated assaults.

The grants authorized in the VICTIM Act will help law enforcement agencies overcome some of the challenges associated with responding to the current increase in violent crime. More specifically, this bill will provide law enforcement with critical resources to address staffing challenges, enhance their forensics capabilities, further deploy investigative technologies, and provide services to victims of violent crime and their families.

Thank you for your continued leadership and support for our brave law enforcement officers. The MCCA stands ready to help advance this legislation. Sincerely, Jeri Williams, Chief, Phoenix Police Department, President, Major Cities Chiefs Association. ____ [From Third Way, June 8, 2022] The Red City Defund Police Problem (By Jim Kessler, Executive Vice President for Policy, and Kylie Murdock, Executive Coordinator)

In recent years, Republicans have tagged Democrats as the party of ``defund the police.'' This political charge has at it roots an unfortunate choice of sloganeering and policy from a small number of progressive activists frustrated and fed up with longstanding police violence and abuse directed toward minorities. However intentioned, the defund charge proved damaging to Democrats. Republicans ran myriad attack ads in 2020 and the attack was credited with Republican upsets in swing districts that narrowed Democratic majorities in the House. This attack was so successful that during his 2022 State of the Union address, President Biden felt compelled to say, ``We should all agree: The answer is not to defund the police. The answer is to fund the police. Fund them. Fund them. The President also dedicated $10 billion from the American Rescue Plan for public safety, including $6.5 billion in crime-fighting aid to state and local communities.

But is the Republican charge even remotely true? It has been taken as a given by much of the media just as Democrats have been pigeon-holed as soft on crime and being responsible for rampant crime across the country. Yet as our March 2022 report showed, the 25 states that voted for Donald Trump had a murder rate 40% higher than the 25 states that voted for Joe Biden. And 8 of the 10 states with the highest murder rates not only voted for Donald Trump, they voted Republican in every presidential election this century. Is the Democrats, defund the police portrait as inaccurate as its soft on crime portrait?

To answer this question, we compared the police budgets of the 25 largest Democrat-run cities and the 25 largest Republican-run cities. We pulled FY2021 and FY2022 funding data directly from city operating budgets, as well as police force data from a mixture of police department websites, city budgets, and local news sources. Using this, we calculated several key metrics--the number of police officers, police officers per capita, police funding per capita, and percent change in police budgets from FY2021 to FY2022. Per capita data allows us to control for population and compare cities like New York City and Fort Worth.

We found that despite conventional wisdom to the contrary, Democrat-run cities employ far more police officers and spend far more money on policing per capita than Republican-run cities. In fact, police forces in Dem cities are 75 percent larger than police forces in GOP cities. And Democrats spend about 38 percent more per person on policing than Republicans do. On average, Democrat- and Republican-run cities all saw an increase in police funding in 2022, with Democrats actually increasing police budgets by slightly more.

The data make clear-Republicans may talk about funding the police, but they trail badly as compared to Democrats. Dem cities employ more police officers per capita than GOP cities

The size of a city's police force is often seen as indicative of its support for law enforcement. Democrats have been accused of defunding the police and cutting police funding and staff. We compared the 25 most populous cities run by each party as defined by the political affiliation of its mayor to see if this potent political charge is true.

The 25 most populous Democratic cities run from New York City with 8,177,025 inhabitants to Memphis with 650,980. The 25 most populous Republican cities run from Jacksonville with a population of 949,611 to Glendale in Arizona with 248,325 residents. In total, the 25 most populous Democratic cities are home to 37,470,584 people, while the commensurate 25 Republican cities have a combined total of 10,415,763.

We found that in the aggregate:

Democrat-run cities employ 288.2 officers per 100,000 residents, compared to Republican-run cities with only 164.6 officers per 100,000 residents.

Police forces in cities with Democratic mayors are 75.1% larger than police forces in GOP cities.

Of the ten cities with the largest per capita police forces, nine are run by Democrats--Washington DC, Chicago, Las Vegas, New York City, Detroit, Philadelphia, Memphis, Boston, and Los Angeles. Miami, coming in at ninth, is the only Republican-run city in the top ten.

We also compared the median per capita police force average since larger cities like New York and Los Angeles can skew results. Among these same cities, those with Democratic mayors had a median of 195.3 officers per 100,000 residents, or 23.1 percent more than the 158.7 median for Republican run cities.

The size of a city didn't seem to be a determining factor in the per capita rate of police officers. For example, Phoenix, San Antonio, and San Diego ranked 5th, 6th, and 8th in population, but ranked 34th, 40th, and 42nd in police per capita. Meanwhile, Las Vegas, Detroit, Memphis, and Miami ranked 25th, 27th, 28th and 33rd in population, but ranked 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th in police per capita. Oklahoma City and Las Vegas have nearly identical populations (676,492 versus 675,592), but Republican-led Oklahoma City had a police force roughly onethird the size of Las Vegas with its Democratic mayor (162.6 officers compared to 444.1 per 100,000 residents). Dem cities spend more money on policing than GOP cities

Republicans have decried Democrats, attempts to cut police budgets in liberal cities across the country. But we found that Democrats spend more on policing than Republicans do.

Republican-run cities spend $361 per resident on police. Democrat-run cities spend $498 per resident, about 38 percent more than Republicans. Because aggregate police budgets can be skewed by larger cities, we also looked at the median per capita police budgets for these sets of 25 cities. Once again, Democrat-run cities had median police budgets 31 percent greater than Republican-run cities, $423.55 to $323.40 per resident.

Of the ten cities that spent the most on policing per capita, six of them are Democrat-run and four are Republican- run. Cities often criticized by Republicans for being ``soft- on-crime''--New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Seattle--are all in the top 15 on police funding per person. Republican strongholds like Bakersfield and Oklahoma City spend less than half of what New York City and Chicago spend on their police. Dem cities saw slightly larger police budget increases than GOP cities in 2022

Defund the police may exist as a slogan, but it does not exist as a policy--at least in the 50 cities that we reviewed. Between FY2021 to FY2022, Democrat-run cities saw a 4.34 percent increase in police funding--from $17.89 billion to $18.67 billion, or about 775 million in the aggregate. Republican-run cities saw a 4.11 percent increase--from $3.62 billion to $3.76 billion, $148 million in the aggregate.

Twenty-one of 25 Democratic cities and 21 of 25 Republican cities showed budget increases in FY2022. Cities like New York and Los Angeles are often mentioned in defund the police attacks--both cities increased their police budgets in 2022. In fact, the ten largest Democrat-run cities increased their police budgets in 2022, though Philadelphia's held fairly constant with a 0.28 percent increase. New York City's increase of 3.75 percent added $196 million. Chicago, Portland, and Seattle--cities often accused of defunding the police--all saw increases in their 2022 police budgets. Paradoxically, Washington DC had the largest budget cut of 3.98 percent but also the largest police budget per resident at $751.62. Conclusion

Democrats have been accused of defunding the police as a larger ``soft on crime'' message from Republican officeholders and conservative media. In a previous report, we found that homicide rates were significantly higher in the 25 states that voted for Trump compared to the 25 states that voted for Biden.

In this report, we find that police funding and police personnel levels are far higher in the 25 largest Democrat- run cities compared to the 25 largest Republican-run cities. In the most recent funding cycle, these same Democratic cities increased their police budgets to a greater degree than cities with Republican mayors.

Our conclusion is that the defund the police charge against Democrats may be politically damaging, but it is factually inaccurate. If anything, Republican mayors have a defund problem.

Mr. Speaker, the VICTIM Act is bipartisan legislation that would increase public safety and improve law enforcement practices. The rise in violent crime affects every community across the country, not just Democratic communities.

But we also know that public safety and respect for civil rights can coexist. Building healthy and strong communities does not require us to choose between our rights and our safety.

I thank the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Demings) for introducing this important legislation, which is supported by a wide range of law enforcement associations.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to support it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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