The Trump administration is distributing nearly $300m across four cities to expand law enforcement resources under a programme called the "Model Cities Initiative." St Louis, Missouri and Jackson, Mississippi each receive more than $60m, with Jacksonville, Florida and Baton Rouge, Louisiana also receiving funds.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said the initiative aims to "increase their capacity for prosecutions and policing activities" in those municipalities.
The administration has promoted a punitive approach to crime that includes controversial steps such as deploying the National Guard to Democrat-led cities. Those deployments have drawn accusations of executive overreach, civil liberties violations and political intimidation.
Trump and his supporters credit their policies with recent drops in violent crime. That trend predates his return to office and has occurred in cities across the country using varied criminal justice approaches. Homicides in St Louis, for instance, have been falling for several years and hit their lowest levels in more than a decade during the first half of 2026.
The administration has cited a federal deployment to Memphis, Tennessee as an inspiration for the Model Cities Initiative. The government has called that effort a success, but some residents and civil liberties groups have accused the task force of widespread civil rights violations and excessive force. A video released this month showed Tennessee National Guard soldiers aiming guns at a man as he lay dying on the street after being shot in the back.