December 29, 2023

Spanish   Creole

The Broward State Attorney’s Office has been awarded federal grants of $745,860 in the past year to help deter and prosecute hate crimes and to investigate child pornography cases more efficiently.

This brings the total federal grant money awarded to the State Attorney’s Office in the last three years to $2,679,878.

Broward State Attorney Harold F. Pryor said: “I am committed to advocating for and pursuing funding to ensure that my attorneys and our law enforcement partners have the resources they need in order to fight crime in the 21^st Century.”

The 2023 grants include:

$375,860 over three years for Smart Prosecution – Focus on Child Pornography: This grant aims to boost the effectiveness of investigating and prosecuting the increasing number of child pornography incidents in Broward County. Online child pornography cases filed for prosecution in Broward County have nearly doubled since 2017, from 33 in 2017 to 59 in 2022. The number of investigative subpoenas handled by our Cybercrime Unit increased from 372 in 2017 to 1948 in 2022.

The grant money is being used to combat child pornography by increasing our Cybercrime Unit’s staff by adding an experienced investigator and a legal assistant and by purchasing much-needed technology to more efficiently investigate and prosecute these types of cases.

The grant also promotes increased training, collaboration, and outreach with local law enforcement agencies, community organizations, and schools. The project also seeks to increase public trust in the criminal justice system by hosting outreach events in the community and circulating educational material, in English, Spanish, and Creole, to increase awareness among residents about the issue and how to report this type of crime to law enforcement.

$300,000 over one year for Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Program – Supplemental Funding: This grant continues the work of the Broward State Attorney’s Office Hate Crimes Unit, Hotline, and Hate Crimes Task Force to increase public awareness and reporting of hate crimes and to help law enforcement and prosecutors prevent and respond to hate crimes in our community.

The grant includes money for the Broward State Attorney’s Office and the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office to work together on creating a regional hate crimes task force. The grant includes $80,822 to Palm Beach County for personnel. The program also includes a community information and awareness campaign for both counties, training for prosecutors from both counties, and for victim advocate support.

$70,000 over three years working with Lauderhill Police Department to combat domestic violence: This grant will help raise awareness in the Creole-speaking community about domestic violence, prevent recurrence, and investigate and prosecute domestic violence cases.

A victim advocate is assigned to work with Lauderhill officers and help Creole-speaking victims of domestic violence as they navigate the legal process.

In a separate effort, our grants unit staff also worked with the Lauderhill Police Department to obtain a federal grant to help the police department use DNA to investigate cold case homicides. Though the State Attorney’s Office receives no money from this grant, we believe it will benefit the community and increase public safety by helping to solve homicide cases that our office may then prosecute.

Our grants unit staff successfully applied for the following federal grants that are helping the State Attorney’s Office’s mission of promoting public safety and justice in our community:

2022

• $1 million to support and improve the use of body-worn cameras and digital evidence in our community over three years
• $5,000 for National Crime Victims’ Rights Week events in Broward County

2021

• $300,000 over three years from the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Program to increase public awareness and reporting of hate crimes and enhance law enforcement and prosecution strategies to prevent and respond to hate crimes
• A total of $1 million over four years, divided between the State Attorney’s Office and the Nancy J. Cotterman Center, to improve criminal justice responses to sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking crimes by reviewing and improving protocols, identifying gaps, providing training, building on strengths, and increasing racial and ethnic equity. More than $410,000 of the grant was allocated to the State Attorney’s Office.
• A total of $300,000 over two years, divided between the State Attorney’s Office Conviction Review Unit and the Innocence Project of Florida, to review claims of innocence and audit new cases, based on debunked or questionable science. More than $218,000 of the grant was allocated to the State Attorney’s Office.