|Big Radio News|
The Rock County District Attorney’s Office is looking to prevent crime, as well as prosecute it.
Jason Sanders says a small surcharge on criminal convictions could generate $15,000 to $20,000 annually for a new crime prevention fund in the county. The money could be used to fund small grants for not only crime prevention but things that build a crime-free community like early childhood education, and spaces for youth.
A Crime Prevention Fund Board of seven people, dictated by state statute, would decide how the funds are distributed. The members would be the presiding circuit court judge, the district attorney, the sheriff, the county administrator, the chief elected official of the county’s largest municipality, a person chosen by majority vote of the sheriff and all the county’s police chiefs, and a person chosen by the public defender’s office.
A resolution Sanders drafted that would establish a crime prevention fund will go before the County Board’s Public Safety and Justice Committee next week.
Sanders says a handful of Wisconsin counties, including Brown, Chippewa, Dodge, Iowa and Oconto, have established their own crime prevention funds since 2015 when the state made such arrangements possible through a new law.
