The Justice Department’s annual budget would rise to $26.5 billion from $25.5 billion under President Obama’s first budget proposal to Congress. Today’s submission included highlights only, with details to come by April. In the anticrime area, the White House is seeking funds to “begin” to put 50,000 more police officers on local beats (no figure was disclosed today) and $109 million for prisoner re-entry programs.
The budget proposal also includes an unspecified number of additional FBI agents to investigate mortgage fraud and white collar crime, and $88 million for the department’s national security division, which would “address the President’s highest priority to protect the American people from terrorist acts.” The budget would provide an unspecified additional sum for a “comprehensive approach to enforcement along the nation’s borders.”