Baby Shower 101

California Attorney General Issues Statement on Loss of California Law ...

I congratulate Governor Jerry Brown and the Legislature for their success in passing California’s budget bill. However, I join California law enforcement leaders in expressing serious concerns over the passage yesterday of $71 million in cuts to the Division of Law Enforcement budget. These budget cuts handcuff the state Department of Justice’s ability to fight gang violence and disrupt the flow of drugs, guns and human beings across our border.

The cuts will likely eliminate 55 state-led task forces that coordinate the response to our growing gang problem. The Bureau of Investigation and Intelligence and Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement will also likely be eliminated, as will the investigative capacities of the newly-formed Mortgage Fraud Strike Force. All told, several hundred agents, investigators, and other law enforcement positions will be lost, as will the ability to prosecute cases like these:

- In the Central Valley, a DOJ-led task force recently helped arrest 101 gang leaders and members who were terrorizing two counties. - Throughout the state, the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force has opened investigations into criminal and consumer fraud. These investigations range from foreclosure scams affecting large numbers of victims to multi-million dollar corporate fraud.

Public safety is a basic right of all people and a core function of our government. For that reason, I call on Governor Brown and the Legislature to immediately restore adequate funding to California law enforcement.

Law enforcement leaders from across the state of California today criticized the deep cuts to the Department of Justice’s law enforcement budget that specifically targeted anti-gang and anti-drug programs.

The general fund reduction proposals would reduce by $71 million the budget of the Division of Law Enforcement. This could lead to the loss of several hundred special agents and other personnel, the dissolution of 55 statewide task forces – many of which coordinate responses to transnational gang and drug crime – and the loss of investigators on the state’s new Mortgage Fraud Strike Force. As a result, two entire law enforcement bureaus could be shut down, the Bureau of Investigations and Intelligence (BII) and the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement (BNE).

California Narcotic Officers’ Association President James C. Hodges: “Yesterday’s budget agreement contained a bad surprise – the budget decimated the General Fund resources available to Attorney General Kamala Harris’ office for law enforcement purposes. The impact of these cuts will be the shutting down of all BNE task forces, as well as their offices. Each of you may recall that these same cuts were proposed in 2009 during the Schwarzenegger administration. Fortunately, the Legislature wisely rejected those proposed cuts. The reasons for rejecting those cuts in 2009 are as valid today as they were in 2009. In fact, they have become accentuated over the past two years. It is fact that the Mexican drug cartels have dramatically increased their profile in California. Additionally, the significant challenges local law enforcement will face in 2011 with public safety realignment is further reason to restore the BNE task forces. The fact is that the loss of BNE task forces will force local law enforcement – who will tell you frankly that they lack the expertise to deal with these sophisticated, multi-national criminal enterprises – to put scarce resources to fill the void left by the loss of BNE task forces. This is a diversion of local law enforcement resources that will unacceptably undermine their efforts to make public safety realignment work.

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