Prosecutors Press for Personal Protection
By: Gerri L. Elder
A group that represents federal prosecutors in the United States is asking that the lawyers be provided with more personal security such as home alarm systems and self-defense training.
There is also a call for federal prosecutors to have the right to carry firearms and for those who handle dangerous criminal cases to have access to secured parking.
These extreme safety measures are the idea of the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys, the group that represents the 5,400 federal prosecutors in the country.
The National Law Journal reported that the chairman of the group claims that federal prosecutors are statistically threatened more often than judges, therefore making additional security measures necessary.
The National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys conducted a survey in which the opinions of 1,257 federal prosecutors were recorded.
Secure parking ranked highest in order of importance for the prosecutors with more than 78 percent of those surveyed saying that it was a very important issue.
The least important issue according to the survey was deputization, with only 35.3 percent of the prosecutors surveyed answering that this was a very important issue.
Less than half of the prosecutors surveyed ranked home alarm systems and annual personal security training as very important, according to the results of the survey.
The survey asked if any of the federal prosecutors or their immediate families had ever been threatened or assaulted as a result of their work as a prosecutor.
Less than half, 45.5 percent of those who responded said that there had been some incidence of a job-related threat or assault; however, more than 81 percent responded that at least one other prosecutor in their office had been the victim of a job-related assault or threat.
While not all of the prosecutors felt threatened or that more personal security measures were very important, 91.2 percent responded that they felt that the Department of Justice should make personal security training and services available to all federal prosecutors and the majority felt that this training should be done annually.
Officials from the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys met with Deputy General Mark Filip in July to share the results of the survey and discuss the concern over security issues with him.
The group also plans to lobby heavily next year to push for a bill that would fund some new security measures for federal prosecutors.
Last year, it was successful with its lobbying efforts to get federal prosecutors partially covered by the Court Security Act of 2007, which originally had been intended for only judges. Under the Act, federal prosecutors will be shielded from having their driver's license information being made public.
The push for stepped up security for prosecutors has been fueled by several incidents in recent years in which federal prosecutors have been murdered or become victims of violent crimes.
As rare as these types of incidents are, they are highlighted by the media because the victims were prosecutors; however, many of these crimes remain unsolved or were found to be completely unrelated to the victim's job.