Despite Biden’s intention to hire 100,000 cops, several provisions in the plan point in other directions. The plan aims, for example, to increase spending on services that can help address root causes of crime—including mental health and substance use treatment, “crisis responders” and social workers, education and housing.
It also allocates $5 billion for “evidence-based community violence intervention programs.” And it creates a $15 billion grant program, called “Accelerating Justice System Reform,” to award money to cities and states that advance strategies to prevent violent crime and use
non-police responses to certain emergencies.
That element of the plan could boost a nationwide movement;
dozens of cities have taken some recent steps to separate police from certain emergencies involving mental health, substance use or homelessness. Denver, for example,
created the “STAR” program last year. In its first six months, it successfully directed nearly 750 emergency calls to a two-person clinical team with a van—none involved police or ended with an arrest. But the
problem for many such programs is that their staffing and funding is tiny compared to cities’ enormous police departments.
Biden is also proposing to greatly mitigate federal discrimination against formerly incarcerated people. His plan would lift “nearly all restrictions” on federal benefits and other programs for people returning from prison or jail. It additionally proposes a range of gun control measures.
Altogether, the plan takes two different, and contradictory, approaches: hiring more cops, but also investing in distressed communities. It roughly splits the dollars between the two.