Date: 05-24-2025
Coalitions include CENTER FOR CHILDREN & YOUTH JUSTICE, CHINESE FOR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, FORCE DETROIT, HEALTH RESOURCES IN ACTION, |
From Vera Institue of Justice:
Contact:
media@vera.org
NEW YORK, NY – Today, the Vera Institute of Justice, a 64-year-old national justice reform organization, teamed with a coalition of nonprofit and community organizations to file a class-action complaint intended to offer relief to hundreds of impacted organizations.
In addition to Vera, the named plaintiffs—the Center for Children and Youth Justice, Chinese for Affirmative Action d/b/a Stop AAPI Hate, FORCE Detroit, and Health Resources in Action—are asking a federal court to stop the Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP) from unlawfully terminating these grants that save lives and make communities safer. The coalition is represented by Democracy Forward and Perry Law, and the case is Vera Institute of Justice, et al. v. United States Department of Justice, et al.
In April 2025, OJP abruptly terminated 373 multi-year cooperative agreements and grants awarding $820 million in essential funding for community violence intervention, victim services, and youth and criminal justice reform. Five of these were cooperative agreements awarded to the Vera Institute of Justice. The Department of Justice's stated justification for the funding termination is that Vera and its co-plaintiffs' work “no longer effectuate[s] the program goals or agency priorities.” Vera programs and services endangered by these funding cuts include:
making prisons across the country safer for both officers and incarcerated people;
sending trained civilian specialists to behavioral health crises so that police are not the only option in these situations; and
training police and law enforcement to better serve Deaf survivors of violence.
Read the full press release here.
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