By Tony Romeo

HARRISBURG, Pa. (CBS) — Pennsylvania’s new attorney general is asking for a budget increase to battle child predators and Mexican drug cartels, which she says are more violent than the better-known Colombian cartels.

At a state senate budget hearing today, attorney general Kathleen Kane says she’s not an alarmist but that she can’t sleep worrying about a lack of resources to combat rising threats in Pennsylvania — and two in particular:

“The child predators, as well as the Mexican drug cartels. If we don’t do something about them in this year and the next year, Pennsylvania will be a different place four years from now, or two years from now.”

Kane says the governor has proposed to keep funding for the attorney general’s office at the same levels in the new budget.  But she says that will result in layoffs in order to pay for salary increases.

She is asking for an increase to not only avoid cutbacks but to increase efforts, including the creation of a mobile “violent street crime” unit to be deployed in neighborhoods that she says are being “taken over” by Mexican cartels.