PHOENIX – Attorney General Kris Mayes today called on the U.S. Department of Justice to restore funding to the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA) and criticized the Trump administration's efforts to defund law enforcement in Arizona. The Attorney General warned that the department’s recent decision to cut this funding will undermine public safety and harm crime victims across Arizona.
“I’m urging the Department of Justice to reverse this awful and short-sighted decision,” said Attorney General Mayes. “These funds help Arizona support victims of crime and build safer communities. Pulling the plug on proven, long-standing partnerships makes no sense, not from a government efficiency perspective or a public safety perspective.”
For decades, the NCJA has served as a critical bridge between federal agencies and state-level criminal justice commissions, including Arizona’s Criminal Justice Commission. The DOJ’s decision to eliminate NCJA funding, reportedly made by DOGE without input from states, threatens to disrupt coordinated crime reduction programs and victim services across the country.
“These cuts will have real-world consequences—especially for victims of violent crime and domestic abuse who rely on the services this funding helps provide,” Mayes said. “The Trump administration can’t claim to be pro-law enforcement and then defund the tools states like Arizona use to protect our communities.”
Cuts in Arizona also include $1 million that funds prosecutor and law enforcement ethics training including What You Do Matters: Lessons from the Holocaust.
