The Fall of DOJ’s Community Relations Service: A Dangerous Moment for Peace, Police and Communities

Congress needs to ask tough questions – and restore a strong CRS to help communities and police departments work together to prevent violence, rather than leaving them to endlessly respond to it.

The CRS team that deployed to protests during the Republican National Convention and Democratic National Convention received an award at the 72nd Attorney General’s Awards. Photo source: U.S. Department of Justice.

One of the best investments the government ever made to reduce violence and promote justice has been rapidly dismantled. We know the dangers that will follow – combined, we were privileged to lead the work for a decade.

The Justice Department’s Community Relations Service (CRS) was created as part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and for more than 60 years CRS conciliators de-escalated conflicts before they grew out of control, brokering cooperation between law enforcement and tense communities, and training local peacemakers to keep their neighborhoods safe.

But after months of RIFs, shuttering field offices, and pressure to take deferred resignations, the Trump Administration has slashed the CRS staff—which once numbered more than 300—down to one employee, hidden away in DOJ’s Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys. After more than six decades, CRS no longer exists.

A group of civil rights and community organizations recently went to federal court to halt the bulldozing of the agency and seek its restoration. A motion for a preliminary injunction was filed last week.

This litigation and other efforts to save CRS are critical. As former directors of the agency, we’ve seen CRS help save lives, avert destruction of neighborhoods and local businesses, and save millions of taxpayer dollars from being spent on emergency law enforcement and rebuilding communities. We have seen how CRS can help people come together across differences to build more resilient communities that respect and protect civil rights.

CRS has routinely earned bipartisan praise from presidents and Congress, as well as attorneys general like John Ashcroft, who deployed CRS after the September 11, 2001, attacks to prevent violence against Arabs, Muslims, Sikhs and South Asians.

As directors of the agency, we received a constant stream of requests from mayors, police departments, shop owners, community organizations, neighbors and faith leaders seeking impartial peacemakers to help address local tensions and prevent violence. Neutral CRS conciliators were often the only parties trusted to bring distrustful factions together to work through their conflicts.

The agency was effective because it recruited and trained mediators from all walks of life who knew their communities – including ministers, teachers, police officers, non-profit leaders, military veterans, lawyers, business executives, and social workers. It became a critical player in helping communities prevent and respond to the kinds of hate crimes that are again on the rise, be they based on race, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, or disability.

Discarding seasoned conciliators at this increasingly dangerous moment in our history increases the chance that community tensions will fester into a new generation of bloody streets, shattered storefront windows and civil rights violations.

Law enforcement leaders who’ve worked with CRS knew that its loss would be a blow to keeping the peace in their communities. “It’s vicarious defunding of the police,” warned a former police chief from Maine.

CRS mediators were critical to preserving peace and interrupting spirals of violence after George Floyd’s death in 2020. They brought Twin Cities law enforcement and community leaders together to share information, jointly stop misinformation from spreading, and develop strategies to keep budding conflicts from turning deadly. Law enforcement officials and community leaders alike praised the impartiality and trustworthiness of CRS mediators.

In 2012, when white nationalists descended on Sanford, Florida, after the shooting of Trayvon Martin, and police grew anxious after the New Black Panthers arrived, federal conciliators worked around the clock to keep tensions from erupting. “They could walk that tight rope between formal institutional bodies like the police department, like city government, and disenfranchised members of the community,” then-police chief Rick Myers told Bloomberg News.

CRS also built a remarkable track record protecting people of faith and their religious liberties. The agency played a pivotal role in helping communities recover and rebuild trust after six Sikh worshippers were killed and several others injured in a 2012 mass shooting at the Sikh Gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. CRS conciliators helped government officials engage with grieving community members and restore calm – and provided on-site crisis mediation and facilitation between Sikh community leaders, law enforcement, and local government to promote trust and open communication.

After a recent surge in attacks and threats against places of worship, the agency organized numerous Protecting Places of Worship forums to bring federal, state, and local law enforcement together with faith-based organizations for briefings on hate crime laws, dealing with active shooter situations, and strengthening security at religious buildings.

This track record is why Jewish leaders called on CRS in 2023, when Nazi symbols and Holocaust images began appearing at a Massachusetts school. For decades, the agency trained students to become problem-solvers and develop plans to deal with these kinds of incidents before they boiled over, helping schools protect kids and avoid expensive meltdowns like in South Boston – where two years of extra security at a high school torn apart by racial violence cost taxpayers $10 million.

As partisan divisions grow more intense, it’s important to know that CRS deployed teams on the streets outside the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions for decades to work with law enforcement, political leaders, community groups, and protesters to prevent violent clashes while ensuring the First Amendment rights of demonstrators.

The cost of scrapping an agency of peacemakers could be astronomical – in lost lives, property damage, taxpayer dollars and fractured communities. Indeed, in their lawsuit seeking to restore CRS, the plaintiffs explain how losing its services is already weakening opportunities around the country to build police-community partnerships, address bullying of Black and LGBTQ+ students, and ensure that local authorities are responsive to local civil rights concerns. And had CRS been on the scene, confrontations over immigration enforcement this year could have been less bloody and less of a drain on taxpayer dollars.

Members of Congress need to ask tough questions, press the Justice Department for details, hold hearings, and make it clear that a pillar of the 1964 Civil Rights Act can’t simply be discarded. Instead of heeding the Administration’s calls to repeal the section of the Act that created CRS, Congress needs to restore a strong CRS with the resources it needs to help our communities and police work together to prevent violence, rather than leaving them to endlessly respond to it.

Justin Lock, Acting Director, Community Relations Service, 2023–2025

Grande Lum, Director, Community Relations Service, 2012–2016

Becky Monroe, Acting Director, Community Relations Service, 2009–2012