The Trump administration will distribute nearly $300m across four cities to expand law enforcement resources, with St Louis and Jackson each receiving more than $60m as part of the "Model Cities Initiative."
Attorney General Todd Blanche said the programme aims to increase prosecutions and policing capacity. The White House announced the effort on Tuesday.
The initiative also targets Jacksonville, Florida, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The administration has framed the effort as central to reducing violent crime. Trump and his supporters have credited their policies with crime declines, though the source notes such trends predate his return to office and occur across cities with varying criminal justice approaches.
Homicides in St Louis have fallen for several years after a pandemic surge and hit their lowest levels in more than a decade during the first half of 2026.
The Model Cities Initiative draws from federal deployments in Memphis, Tennessee and Washington, DC. The Trump administration has called the Memphis operation a success, but civil liberties groups and some residents have accused the deployed federal task force of civil rights violations and excessive force. A video released this month showed Tennessee National Guard soldiers aiming guns at a man lying on the street after being shot in the back during an investigation into a shooting by a guardsman deployed there.
Democratic officials have denounced Trump's crime-fighting crackdowns, while some Republican-led states have embraced them.