Support of Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program (LETPP) as Standalone Program
Chicago, IL
October 26, 2011
Support of Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program (LETPP) as Standalone Program
Submitted by the Homeland Security Committee
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WHEREAS, the vast majority of federal homeland security efforts have focused to date on increasing the nation's capabilities to respond to—and to recover from—a terrorist attack, improving thereby those vital response and recovery capacities of the state, county, tribal, and local public safety agencies; and
WHEREAS, law enforcement officials, unlike other public safety officials, are charged with dual responsibilities: to ensure their agencies respond effectively to the scene of any crime, vehicle crash, or terrorist attack; and to detect, deter, and prevent—as their chief duty—such events before they actually occur; and
WHEREAS, law enforcement officials firmly believe that the need to build response and recovery capacities are secondary to their paramount responsibility of developing the capability to prevent terrorist attacks from being initiated in the first place; and
WHEREAS, the Congress of the United State recognized law enforcement's unique prevention role with the creation of the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program (LETPP) within the Department of Homeland Security; and
WHEREAS, all other homeland security programs fund a broad range of public safety agencies, the LETTP program is the only funding source dedicated solely to meeting law enforcement's unique requirements of detection, deterrence, and prevention; and
WHEREAS, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) believes that the failure to retain—and to fully fund—the LETPP will severely weaken the ability of law enforcement to detect, deter, and prevent future terrorist attacks; now, therefore be it
RESOLVED that the IACP believes that it is vitally important to the security of the United States of America to fully fund the LETPP as a standalone program.