Human Rights

Earlier this month, the Vera Institute of Justice, a national criminal justice reform nonprofit, was notified that all five of its federal grants had been abruptly canceled by the Department of Justice. The lost funding, totaling approximately $5 million, had supported ongoing programs to improve prison conditions and mental health crisis response, as well as training law enforcement to better serve deaf survivors of domestic violence—all of which, the nonprofit says, have bolstered public safety across the country.
“It is just an opening salvo,” Insha Rahman, Vera’s vice president for advocacy and partnerships, told me. “Vera might be the first organization to lose its federal funding, but I am certain we will not be the last in the criminal justice field.” 
Since taking office in February, Attorney General Pam Bondi has made sweeping moves to align the Department of Justice with President Donald Trump’s policy priorities. The day she was sworn in, Bondi directed the department’s Civil Rights Division to investigate what she described as “illegal DEI and DEIA discrimination and preferences.” Under her leadership, the department has dropped criminal cases against the president’s allies and removed top career officials from their posts. On Fox News, Bondi promised to “root out” DOJ and FBI employees who “despise” Trump. 
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Coupled with the Department of Government Efficiency‘s cost-cutting rampage, it may have been inevitable that officials would take a closer look at the DOJ’s largest grantmaking entity, the Office of Justice Programs. That office distributes more than $4 billion in funding for law enforcement training, violence prevention, victim services, and criminal justice research. Some of the grants are awarded to city and county governments, while others go to local and national nonprofits. Before leaving office earlier this year, two Biden-era officials said the office…

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