These days, some federal Weed and Seed grants seemingly have more to do with politics than crime-fighting. Grants are running out in some high-crime cities - like Camden - while new money goes to small towns with little drug-dealing or violence.
When Upper Darby became a Weed and Seed site before the November elections last year, then-Sen. Rick Santorum held a news conference to announce the $175,000 award. He said the money would go toward "weeding out violent criminals and drug abusers."
Upper Darby is hardly a trafficking hotbed. Last year, the township didn't report the arrest of a single drug pusher.
Instead, in its Weed and Seed application, Upper Darby said it would use the money to enforce "nuisance statutes" and state liquor laws in Stonehurst, a low-income, mostly African American neighborhood.
A racial divide
Other Weed and Seed cities have the same issues, a review shows. Although the program was founded on the idea of enlisting communities in crime-fighting, many grants now go to nearly all-white departments that aggressively enforce minor statutes in neighborhoods that are home to large numbers of minorities.
Upper Darby, with one black officer on a force of 127, is one of the whitest departments its size in the nation. Bristol Township has 69 officers, none black.
Dennis Greenhouse, who oversees the Weed and Seed program, said through a spokeswoman that the program did not consider the racial makeup of departments when it made grants. He declined requests for an interview.
But Greenhouse's predecessor says this lack of diversity, in a program tied to community relations, may be a prescription for failure.
"If you've got that kind of barrier, how are you going to have an effective Weed and Seed program?" asked Stephen Rickman, who ran Weed and Seed from 1994 until 2002. "It just makes it a lot harder."
