Republican congressional candidate Jesse Reising held a roundtable discussion with law enforcement professionals Thursday to unveil another legislative initiative, the second piece of his Day One Agenda.
A priority, according to Reising, “Increasing recruitment and retention through additional funding provided through the Federal Cops Hiring Program, and we’re going to work closely with local law enforcement agencies to understand exactly where their priorities are.”
“Our law enforcement agencies are facing severe recruitment and retention problems,” Reising said, “so what I want to do is get into Congress and provide some support to our law enforcement agencies to allow them to increase their ranks, because they’re really down in substantial numbers; in many cases half of really where they want to be in terms of staffing and patrolling on the streets. We’ve got certain departments that are used to having between fifty and two hundred applicants for open positions, and now they have between six and eight.”
Reising also advocates for Project Safe Neighborhoods. “It’s a program that’s been used in the past to address violent crime and gun crimes, and we’ve seen a lot of that funding go to the big cities, but we’re having surging crime rates in our communities in the thirteenth district.”
Reising, a former federal prosecutor, made his remarks following the roundtable in Riverton, which included Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell.