Justice Department Focuses On Civil Rights : NPR: The Obama Justice Department wants to make protecting civil rights one of its legacies. So several U.S. attorneys across the country have started special units to devote more attention to building those cases.
For the announcement of one such effort, Justice Department leaders traveled to Pittsburgh late last year. At the August Wilson Center for African American Culture, named after the prominent black playwright, civil rights division chief Tom Perez told a crowd filled with dozens of activists for racial and gender equality that they'd soon have another place to turn with their concerns.
'There are roughly a dozen U.S. attorneys offices now that have established … dedicated civil rights units and we're working to raise that number substantially because this is about sustainability,' Perez said.
The Obama civil rights division prosecuted 237 criminal cases over the last two years — what officials call a record. But numbers aren't the only measure that prosecutors are using for success.
