The Trump administration eliminated over $800 million in federal grants aimed at reducing gun violence in April 2025, wiping out funding for community intervention programs at the precise moment when American homicides have plunged to historic lows.
The cuts targeted the Justice Department's Office of Justice Programs. Officials justified the move by saying they would focus instead on prosecuting criminals. But researchers and public health advocates argue the decision contradicts the evidence: community-based violence prevention works better than arrests alone at keeping people alive.
The timing of the cuts stands out sharply. After homicides spiked 30 percent during the pandemic's first year, the nation entered a historic crime decline. By 2025, the U.S. recorded 25 percent fewer homicides than in 2019, according to the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank. New York City reported its fewest murders in recorded history during the first four months of this year.
The White House has attributed this progress to Trump's deployment of National Guard troops to cities and tough-on-crime policies since taking office. But the data tells a different story. Cities where Trump sent no Guard units saw homicide drops exceeding 40 percent compared with 2019. Baltimore, Buffalo, and Salt Lake City all experienced steep declines without federal military deployments.
"We have seen significant drops in violent crime in cities without any deployments," said Rhett Morris, who co-authored a Brookings Institution report on pandemic-era violence. "It doesn't seem like that has been a critical factor."
Baltimore offers the clearest case study for what the administration is dismantling. The city saw the largest homicide rate decrease among 35 major U.S. cities tracked in the Council on Criminal Justice study. Groups like LifeBridge Health employed community members to mediate conflicts and prevent shootings, reaching people at highest risk. Los Angeles's Urban Peace Institute trained Black and Latino community members as violence interrupters. Both organizations lost their federal grants under Trump.
"When you pour resources into a strategic plan focused on a comprehensive approach to public safety, you see what Baltimore saw," said Shani Buggs, an assistant professor at UC Davis who studies community violence prevention. "It is beyond disheartening that rather than investing in what worked and studying why it worked, we are doing the opposite."
Experts remain uncertain which single factor drove the sharp national crime decline. Jeff Asher, a data analyst at AH Datalytics, points to a mix of causes: sustained investment in violence intervention, improved street lighting and infrastructure, and society adapting to pandemic conditions. "There are too many explanations to name, and none of it do we know for sure are the major drivers," Asher said.
San Francisco offers another instructive example. In 2020, the city launched a violence reduction initiative featuring intensive mentorship and life coaching for people at highest risk of gun involvement. The targeted district saw a 50 percent reduction in homicides and non-fatal shootings compared with the rest of the city, according to University of Pennsylvania research.
The Trump administration justified the cuts by calling them an effort to eliminate "millions of dollars in wasteful grants," through then-attorney general Pam Bondi. Yet Buggs noted a troubling absence: "There was no investigation of waste, fraud and abuse before the cuts were made. When you're talking about preventing violence, I would think that our government would want to ensure that we weren't doing harm first."
Not all funded programs have performed cleanly. Minneapolis offers a cautionary example. In 2023, a resident sued the city over lax contracting procedures for violence prevention organizations. Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison filed suit against We Push for Peace, alleging that directors diverted more than $6.5 million for personal use, including a Las Vegas trip, child support payments, and funding for a liquor store and car dealership. A We Push for Peace employee was also filmed beating a homeless man outside a grocery store in 2021.
Minneapolis settled the contracting lawsuit and agreed to tighten oversight. But the city has also become a Trump administration target, partly due to alleged fraud among residents. Unlike the national downward trend, Minneapolis saw homicides spike 30 percent in 2025 compared with 2019.
Federal funding cuts aimed at waste and fraud prevention can be justified in principle. The actual track record of these programs, however, suggests that broad elimination without careful analysis may cost far more in lives than any fraud ever saved.
Author James Rodriguez: "Cutting programs tied to historic crime reductions without proving they don't work is not tough-on-crime governance, it's governance by slogan."
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