U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday announced $78 million in new grants for community-based violence prevention programs he credited with playing an integral role in reducing crime.

Garland made his announcement while addressing a ballroom at the downtown Hyatt Regency filled with hundreds of activists and researchers who received a previous round of grants.

He said the additional money represents a “doubling down” of Justice Department funding for programs that began two years ago to counter a surge in gun violence.

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Garland cited a 13% decline in homicides nationwide in 2023. Killings in Chicago declined by 12% last year, the second consecutive year that the number of slayings in the city has fallen following two years of near historic levels of violence.

“Every person in every neighborhood deserves to be protected and to feel protected,” Garland said. “That is why the Justice Department is not easing up on our efforts to reduce violent crime. In fact, today we are doubling down.”

Garland cited a recent study on READI Chicago, an anti-violence group formerly headed by Eddie Bocanegra, who emceed Wednesday’s conference in his current role as a senior adviser to the Justice Department.

The University of Chicago analysis of the READI program showed participants were two-thirds less likely to be arrested for a shooting and were 20% less likely to be shot themselves, Garland said.

The Justice Department program called Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative had already received some $350 million in federal funds, including $2 million awarded to Chicago’s Metropolitan Family Services, which in turn doled out money to more than a dozen anti-violence groups citywide and has coordinated a central training center for outreach workers.

Combined with state funds, federal COVID-19 relief funds and private money, violence intervention programs have seen “absolutely historic” amounts of funding in recent years, according to Louisa Avila, a New York-based program officer for the Joyce Foundation.

“These kinds of federal commitments encourage a lot of other funders, in philanthropy and at the local level,” Avila said. “These kinds of programs have been badly underfunded for years, and they still need more funding. It takes meaningful public investment to produce improvements in public safety.”

In Chicago alone, the cost of expanding violence outreach programs to a level that would produce a 50% decrease in homicides — a level not seen since the 1960s — would cost about $400 million over the next five years, according to a coalition of city, state and county leaders.

Private donors from the city’s business community have pledged $66 million to the effort. Under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the programs received millions in additional funding from the city and federal COVID-19 relief funds.

In Lowell, Massachusetts, a $900,000 federal grant, coupled with more state and philanthropic funding, has allowed an outreach group to hire more workers and triple the participants in its programs for at-risk young people and those returning from prison.

Whether funding will continue at current levels is a concern of Nichelle Sadler, executive director of the group’s training center.

“I’ve been in this work since the 1990s, and I’ve seen the ups and downs for funding in this space,” Sadler said. “The funding has made a huge, huge difference. I don’t take it for granted, and I’m always on edge.”

In an interview, Bocanegra said federal and philanthropic dollars were never intended to fully fund the programs in perpetuity. But programs beefed up with grant money could show their methods are effective, allowing local leaders to justify adding them to municipal budgets.

“We have more demand for funds, and that shows a huge need for these resources,” Bocanegra said. “Hopefully, that signals to the local level the need to continue and enhance the funding. We hope these dollars are providing a seed.”