A $1.6 billion proposal in the U.S. House of Representatives would help restore funding to scores of youth anti-crime programs whose budgets have been slashed, but lawmakers may be reluctant to take up the expensive measure amid a sour economy, reports the Associated Press. The Youth Promise Act would fund organizations like Homeboy Industries, a gang rehabilitation center founded in 2001 under the motto "Nothing stops a bullet like a job." The center recently laid off more than 300 of its 427 workers, most of them former gang members.
The recession has hit other nonprofits across the country hard and left some wondering how they will survive. "It would be a lifeline for us," Omar Jahwar, whose Vision Regeneration group fights violence in Dallas, said of the Youth Promise Act. The bill has 235 co-sponsors in the House but only 14 in the Senate. It is competing with another crime bill, proposed by Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., that would create a string of new criminal offenses and enhanced penalties for gang members.
Posted by Broke youth anti-crime groups want federal cash – The Associated Press | Gangsta Extract
Saturday, September 04, 2010 06:39
[…] Industries, a gang rehabilitation center founded in 2001 under the motto "Nothing …Approval In Doubt For Bill To Restore Youth Anti-Crime FundingThe Crime […]
Posted by Pat Simon
Saturday, September 04, 2010 05:16
We have been working, in MA, to get Senator Brown to co-sponsor S 435. He is the only member of the MA delegation not in support of the House or Senate bill, and we have personally lobbied his Boston office. He is very aware of the need for the prevention programs, which the Youth PROMISE Act would fund, for he spent an hour with leaders in Boston neighborhoods, the day after he was elected to take Senator Kennedy’s seat. With this news of a competing, rather punitive, bill we will urge a “Call-in” to Senator Brown, on Tuesday, Sept. 7 (617-565-3170)!