Promises about Crime on Obameter

"This advisor will ensure that his agenda is coordinated across federal agencies and fully addresses prevention, programs, and the legal aspects of gender based violence."

"His administration will also issue a joint report on 'best practices' across agencies and disseminate that information to the states."

Provide "funds to help communities, nonprofit organizations and police combat domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking."

"Expand the purposes for which leave can be taken under the Family Medical Leave Act to include reasons related to domestic violence or sexual assault."

"Barack Obama and Joe Biden will also initiate a grant and training program to provide federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies the tools they need to detect and prosecute cyber crime."

"Barack Obama will direct his Attorney General and Homeland Security Secretary to meet with their Latin American and Caribbean counterparts in the first year of his presidency to produce a regional strategy to combat drug trafficking, domestic and transnational gang activity, and organized crime. A hemispheric pact on security, crime and drugs will permit the U.S. and Latin America and the Caribbean to advance serious and measurable drug demand reduction goals, while fostering cooperation on intelligence and investigating criminal activity.

"The (Bush) administration has consistently proposed to cut or eliminate funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne/JAG) program, which funds anti-drug and anti-gang task forces across the country. …Since 2000, this program has been cut more than 83 percent. ... As president, Obama will restore funding."

"Will place the weight of (his) administration behind the enactment of the Matthew Shepard Act to outlaw hate crimes."

Will ensure that the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division vigorously pursues cases involving hate crimes and civil rights abuses by local officials. "And he will also require the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights to provide him with a report for its plan to diversify the Division's workforce in his first 100 days, particularly in the Criminal Section."

"Will work in a bipartisan way to eliminate disparities" between mandatory sentences for trafficking crack cocaine versus powder cocaine, which he believes has disproportionately filled our prison with young black and Latino drug users. "They will also repeal the mandatory minimum sentence for first-time offenders convicted of simple possession of crack, as crack is the only drug that a non-violent first-time offender can receive a mandatory minimum sentence for possessing."

"Will immediately review (mandatory minimum) sentences to see where we can be smarter on crime and reduce the ineffective warehousing of nonviolent drug offenders."

"Currently, the Department of Justice makes grants available to state and local governments to establish drug courts. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will replicate these efforts within the federal criminal justice system by signing a law that would authorize federal magistrates to preside over drug courts and federal probation officers to oversee the offenders' compliance with drug treatment programs. They will ensure that our federal courts and probation offices have adequate resources to deal with this new program."

"Will sign legislation that will ban the practice of racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies and provide federal funding to state and local police departments if they adopt policies to prohibit the practice."

Will encourage states to adopt a law similar to one he shepherded through the Illinois legislature, "requiring videotaping of interrogations and confessions in capital cases to ensure that prosecutions are fair."

"Will create a prison-to-work incentive program, modeled on the Welfare-to-Work Partnership, to create ties with employers, third-party agencies that provide training and support services to exoffenders, and to improve ex-offender employment and job retention rates."

Will fully funding the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program "to combat crime and help address police brutality and accountability issues in local communities."

Will "repeal the Tiahrt Amendment and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade."

"Will finish rebuilding the region's criminal justice system so that we do not have to rely on the National Guard to patrol city streets..Will establish a special "COPS for Katrina" program to allow communities impacted by the storm to hire and retain new officers and community prosecutors, develop community-based crime fighting strategies, and rebuild their lost infrastructure... Will strengthen Drug Enforcement Administration efforts to stop the reestablishment of drug gangs across the region...Will help local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies come together to establish an integrated regional crime control partnership so that each police chief and sheriff doesn't have to face these crime problems alone."

"Will give parents the tools and information they need to control what their children see on television and the Internet in ways fully consistent with the First Amendment. To further protect children online...Support tough penalties, increased enforcement resources and forensic tools for law enforcement, and collaboration between law enforcement and the private sector to identify and prosecute people who abuse the Internet to try to exploit children."

"We will give first-time, nonviolent drug offenders a chance to serve their sentence, where appropriate, in the type of drug-rehabilitation programs that have proven to work better than a prison term in changing bad behavior."