WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced dozens of additional Assistant United States Attorneys will be positioned in different cities, in an effort to help beat back an increase in violent crime, and Maryland will get three of them.
The Baltimore Sun reports that the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland will receive three additional prosecutors.
“Through a reallocation of resources, we will be enlisting and deploying 40 additional violent crime prosecutors across the United States,” Sessions announced Friday.
Sessions said attorneys are headed to “hotbeds such as Central Islip, New York, where we will have two new federal prosecutors focusing solely on violent crime and MS-13.”
Oakland, California; Toledo, Ohio; Memphis, Tennessee; Milwaukee, St. Louis and Las Vegas are among other cities that will receive more federal prosecutors.
“Through these efforts, we now have 40 slots, but this is just the beginning of our push to increase the tooth-to-tail ratio at this department to drive down violent crime. We plan to push out an additional 260 AUSAs in the months to come,” Sessions’ prepared remarks stated.
The Sun reports that Sessions mentioned Baltimore’s homicide rate just days earlier during a news conference there.
According to the Sun’s homicide tracker, the city’s murders spiked above 300 in 2015 — and haven’t slipped below that mark since.
Sessions said the new Assistant U.S. Attorneys can help reduce crime.
Their role in crushing organized criminal enterprises involves supervision of “multiple investigations.” A result can be the simultaneous dismantling of several organized crime operations. “That means fewer violent criminals on the streets and more concentration of resources on the bad actors who are left. That is how you reduce crime,” Sessions said.
