(Washington, DC) - Yesterday afternoon the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed H.R. 1139, the COPS Improvements Act.  Congressman Baron Hill voted for the bill that will likely put an additional 50,000 police officers on the beat nationwide and 674 in Indiana alone.

H.R. 1139 reinvigorates the highly successful COPS program.  In addition to providing the resources for local communities to hire more police officers, the bill also authorizes money for COPS technology grants and for hiring community prosecutors. 

“The drop in the overall crime rate nationwide can be directly attributed to the COPS program,” Hill said.  “This bill is particularly necessary right now because of the economic downturn, which has led to both rises in certain types of crime and cutbacks in state and local funding for law enforcement across the country.”

H.R. 1139 now moves onto the Senate.