SALISBURY, MD – Mayor Jake Day is pleased to announce that the City of Salisbury Police Department has been chosen by the Maryland Congressional Delegation to receive close to $130,000 in funding toward community policing programs. $105,000 comes from the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and the additional $24,726 comes from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program. These funds are to be used for crime prevention through drug treatment, prevention and education, mental health, law enforcement, witness and crime victim, and crisis intervention team programs.
This additional funding will aid Salisbury Police Department’s community policing and de-escalation programs by developing the abilities of law enforcement to implement community policing, providing guidance on de-escalation and crisis intervention practices, and supporting new approaches to prevent crime and promote safe communities.
Last year City and Police officials announced a multi-faceted plan aimed at bolstering public confidence in the Salisbury Police Department. The Salisbury Police Department Comprehensive Trust Rebuilding Initiative made commitments to our community in terms of improving and increasing confidence and trust in our department and its officers. One of the main initiatives announced was the revitalization of the Citizen’s Police Academy, a program that the City is proud to report as being back online and available to citizens. Another initiative announced last year was the formation of a Criminal Justice Task Force to propose local, county and state policing recommendations to law, policy, and procedure.
More recently, the City and Salisbury’s Police Department announced that it had been named as a recipient of a grant that would enable law enforcement officers to be accompanied to certain situations by a social worker. This new program will first and foremost serve Salisbury’s citizens, many of whom need long-lasting solutions to their emergency calls, something that needs more time and skills than our officers are equipped to offer. Having a social worker accompany the officer on a call ensures that officers are not being tasked with solving non-criminal issues, and our community members is getting the individualized help that they need.
“Thank you to the Maryland Congressional Delegation and Senators Cardin and Van Hollen for helping us to expand and implement our department’s community policing programs through these grants,” shared Mayor Jake Day. “This funding is going to directly benefit our community members through expanding our current community policing programs, de-escalation training programs, and simply meeting people where they are in order to help them solve problems,” he added.
