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President Biden plans to announce proposals on crime and policing on Thursday, an attempt to show he is standing up to violent crime while responding to Democrats’ desire for action after recent mass shootings and the failure of police reform efforts in Congress.
During a trip to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Biden will lay out a plan for a safer America that includes expanded law enforcement funding to allow the hiring and training of 100,000 police officers for what the administration calls “responsible community policing.” according to a White House statement and senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to see the announcement.
At the same time, trying to build on the momentum of last month’s passage of bipartisan gun control legislation, Biden will offer nearly $3 billion to help communities clear backlogs of lawsuits and solve murders; a $15 billion grant program to prevent violent crime and redirect police resources to nonviolent cases; and $5 billion for community violence intervention programs.
Overall, the reports underscored Biden’s efforts to balance liberals’ push for police reform and gun control with voters’ concerns about rising crime. With November’s congressional elections looming, Republicans hit hard on the message that Democratic city officials are trying to destroy or eliminate police departments.
Biden tried to find a middle ground. After some liberal activists adopted the “free the police” slogan after the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis officer, Biden made it clear he believes reform requires more funding, not less. “The answer is not to defund the police,” he said in May. “The answer is to fund the police with the resources and training they need to protect our communities.”
Biden’s proposals, which require congressional approval, amount to providing more details on his $5.8 trillion 2023 budget presented in March. Biden will not announce any new executive action on Thursday, and he acknowledged that recent gun legislation, while including the most significant restrictions on firearms in decades, fell far short of his ambitions after the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas .
Several of Biden’s proposals Thursday would focus on how police interact with people who have disabilities or are experiencing a mental health crisis, such as teaming law enforcement officers with social workers or other professionals. A number of recent police shootings — or deaths of people in police custody — have involved people struggling with mental health issues.
The president continued to press Congress for further gun restrictions, including background checks on all gun sales, as well as bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Those measures were rejected by Republicans and are unlikely to pass in the near future.
Many liberals and Democratic voters strongly support more gun control, and Americans have been alarmed by mass shootings in recent months, making the issue potentially resonant. Pennsylvania, which includes liberal cities and conservative rural areas, is a critical state for the upcoming midterms.
Biden wanted to move forward on the recent gun control bill, however modest it was, a senior administration official said.
“He didn’t want time to pass between that and what he was proposing next,” the official said. “He wanted to capture the momentum, capture the moment to drive it forward.”
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