Credit : The White House's X
WASHINGTON November 10, 2026 — The White House said the US Department of Justice had announced two more cities in its Model Cities Initiative, naming St Louis, Missouri, and Jackson, Mississippi, in an official graphic posted on X.
“The Trump Administration is Making America Safe Again,” the White House wrote, saying the Justice Department was adding the two cities “to redouble efforts to invest in local communities, strengthen the rule of law, and keep American families safe.” The graphic said the St Louis award would support law enforcement and “restore law and order,” and that the Jackson award was intended to fight violent crime and improve public safety. It listed priorities including expanding patrol and investigative capacity, strengthening prosecution, building a real-time public safety centre, and improving technology and crime-fighting tools.
Justice Department statements dated November 9 confirmed that St Louis and Jackson had been selected for the initiative, alongside Jacksonville, Florida, and East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, which were announced earlier. The department said the four jurisdictions were chosen from nearly 50 American cities that applied. Officials said the programme takes a “whole-of-city” approach, bringing together law enforcement agencies, local government officials and community partners to design strategies matched to each city’s public-safety problems.
The Justice Department launched the Model Cities Initiative in June 2026, saying it built on earlier efforts in cities such as Memphis, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C. According to the department, support under the initiative is intended to help hire sworn officers and other public-safety staff, adopt new technology and equipment, expand forensic capacity, and provide services addressing mental health, substance use and recidivism. Attorney General Todd Blanche is due to visit the selected jurisdictions to present the awards and meet local officials, elected leaders and community partners.
In St Louis, the Metropolitan Police Department is the designated partner. In Jackson, the award is to the city itself. The earlier announcements named the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and East Baton Rouge Parish as the partners in those two jurisdictions. Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri, a Republican and former state attorney general, welcomed St Louis’s selection, saying violent crime had “tormented our communities and left families feeling unsafe,” and that he was “proud that St Louis was one of the four cities chosen” to support officers and “serve as an example for the rest of the nation.”
The department has described the four Model Cities as part of the administration’s effort to “reject the status quo of allowing crime and disorder to go unchecked and restore law, order, and safety to communities across the nation.” The White House post on November 10 did not set out a timetable for the work in St Louis or Jackson. The Justice Department said it would work with each jurisdiction to finalise and implement its public-safety plan.
Local officials in both St Louis and Jackson have long faced pressure to cut violent crime, and federal involvement in city policing remains politically contested in the United States. Supporters argue that closer federal-local cooperation can reduce violence and strengthen investigations and prosecutions. Critics of similar programmes have raised concerns about the expansion of surveillance tools, including real-time crime centres, and about the federal government setting the terms of local law enforcement. The official graphic itself listed a real-time public safety centre and improved “real-time crime-fighting capabilities” among the intended uses.
Life News Agency is reporting the official announcement and the department’s description of the programme, not the size of any federal awards. With Jacksonville and East Baton Rouge Parish already named, all four Model Cities selected under the initiative have now been publicly identified.
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