Republican Attorney General Candidate Chuck Welch has released a detailed plan to combat violent crime in Delaware.
The multi-faceted plan, released Monday, would bring law enforcement, prosecutors, and community leaders together to seriously begin making crime illegal again in Delaware.
In the attached initiative, Welch, a former Kent County Judge and State Representative, promises within 30 days of being elected that he will form an Attorney General’s Urban Violence Task Force, with the goal to reduce both long term and short term urban violence. The task force will consist of three components: 1.) Investigation, 2.) Prosecution, and 3.) Community Based Research.
The Task Force will be led by Welch’s Chief Deputy Attorney General and will be supported by the State Prosecutor and the State Solicitor. It will be funded through the reallocation of current Department of Justice monies, federal grants, and the implementation of previously funded studies dealing with urban violence.
“My goal is to assemble the best legal and law enforcement professionals available, together with community leaders, to address the ever increasing rates of violent crime in Delaware,” Welch said. “We need to turn these rates around. Only then can the people of Delaware feel safe.”
Welch’s initiative references a 2015 report released by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) entitled
“Elevated Rates of Urban Firearm Violence and Opportunities for Prevention-Wilmington, Delaware.”
The study found that Wilmington, Delaware had one of the highest homicide rates of any major city in the United States, some years as high as fourth overall.
As of December 12, 2021, 148 people had been shot for the year in Wilmington alone, and shooting homicides were at an all time high. In the initiative, Welch vows that reducing violent crime in our urban areas and throughout Delaware will be “Job Number One” in his administration.
“We can and certainly must do a better job of addressing the violence plaguing Wilmington, Newark, Dover, Seaford and all other parts of the First State,” Welch stated in the report. “I intend to do my part and intend for the Department of Justice to do its part in the effort to reduce the rate of violent crime in our state. We must do a better job protecting Delawareans than we are doing under our current Attorney General.”
Chuck Welch is running against opponent Julianne Murray for the Republican nomination of Attorney General for the State of Delaware.