Biden pushes for additional police funding to stop crime surge [Video]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• President Joe Biden urged officials on Wednesday to use the COVID-19 relief funds in hiring additional law enforcement personnel to battle the rising cases of homicide.
• Biden has been pushing for stricter gun control measures which faced opposition from GOP lawmakers.
• The FBI confirmed that there has been an increase of crime rates in 2020 and the uptrend continues.

President Joe Biden expressed his intention to enact a policy that would enable the police to receive more funding in a bid to mitigate the rising homicide crimes, which he attributed to the lenient gun control measures.

On Wednesday, Biden encouraged the states and cities to use $350 billion from the COVID-19 relief funds on public safety and security measures, such as hiring more essential workers.

“It means more police officers, more nurses, more counsellors, more social workers or community violence interrupters to help resolve issues before they escalate into crimes,” Biden said.

Some Democrats in the left wing have been advocating the ‘defund the police’ movement by Black Lives Matter, but the president has by far resisted such calls.

“This is not a time to turn our backs on law enforcement or our communities,” the president said.

In his White House address Wednesday, Biden also spoke against armed insurrectionists, telling them that they would at least “need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons” to battle the government.

One proposition of Biden’s administration is to regulate gun ownership in the US. Unfortunately, those Democrat-led bills that aim at reducing firearms’ access to citizens were blocked by GOP lawmakers in Congress.

The federal government also considers allocating resources on programs like community violence intervention projects, employment opportunities and summer activities for young adults, including teenagers, and support for ex-convict Americans to restart their lives.

Biden also recently facilitated a discussion with several big city mayors to tackle the issue of rising crimes.

Based on the preliminary 2020 statistics issued by the FBI last March, there was a 25 percent increase in murders versus 2019. Currently, the crime rate continues to go up. By September, the agency is set to release the final figures. If the upward trend persists, it would be one of the most significant reported increases in homicide cases.

“This was a large-scale national increase in violence,” Jeff Asher, AH Datalytics co-founder and former CIA and Department of Defense analyst, told the BBC.

Several analysts have attributed the rise of homicide cases due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Research showed, however, that crime rates across the globe have dip or just flat amid the restrictions and lockdowns.

Other analysts, meanwhile, blamed the passing of George Floyd last May 2020 and the recurring civil unrest across the nation that dampened the morale of the police.

Hunting on gun dealers and firearms trafficking are the current game plan of the president in fighting crimes across the US. For Republicans, Biden’s strategy was lethargic, while for the left-wing, who advocates defunding the police, it was the other way around.

Source: Yahoo News