2024 Woonsocket Police Justice Assistance Grant

The City of Woonsocket, Rhode Island is home to approximately 42,000 people in a diverse community with a challenging socioeconomic status. Limited funding makes it difficult for the Woonsocket Police Department (WPD) to initiate and sustain any programs beyond the basic responsibility for everyday policing and public safety. This reality hinders the Department’s efforts to meet the difficult and evolving challenges of policing in the 21st Century; challenges that often require a non-traditional police response.

The Woonsocket Police Department requires Justice Assistance Grant funding to sustain community policing programs (bicycle patrols and the Police Explorers Post) that have been successful, to purchase equipment that will enhance officer safety (thermal imager), and to promote officer wellness through the use of a wellness app officers can access and use anonymously.  The Department will also use funding to combat violent crime, by establishing violent crime patrols which have been effective in deterring crime and locating violent offenders in the past.