Joe Biden promised to end jail time for drug offenses while urging against defunding police in a town hall in Milwaukee on Tuesday. The p...
Joe Biden promised to end jail time for drug offenses while urging against defunding police in a town hall in Milwaukee on Tuesday.
The president took questions from CNN's Anderson Cooper and members of the audience in his first town hall since entering the White House, even declaring at one point: 'I'm tired of talking about Donald Trump.'
Biden, when asked by Wisconsin pastor Dannie Evans about how to not 'over-legislate' police officers in high crime neighborhoods, he said: 'By number one, not defunding the police.'
'We have to put more money in police work so we have legitimate community policing and we're in a situation where we change the legislation,' Biden said.
'Nobody should go to jail for a drug offense. No one should go to jail for the use of a drug. They should go to drug rehabilitation.'
Wisconsin pastor Dannie Evans, right, asked Joe Biden about how to not 'over-legislate' police officers in high-crime neighborhoods
Biden, above, said he does not support defunding the police and said 'more money' need to be spent on policing
Biden has reiterated previous comments that more money needs to be put into community policing
Biden added that 'nobody should go to jail for a drug offense' and said people should be sent to drug rehabilitation instead of jail
Biden added that there is 'inherent prejudice built into the current policing system, which he said needs to be provided for.
'We also need to provide for, and its already happening, more African American and more Hispanic police officers. By the way, they don't get it all right either by a long shot,' he said.
He added: 'Every cop when they get up in the morning and put on that shield has a right to expect to go home to their family that night.'
'Conversely, every kid walking across the street wearing a hoodie is not a member of of a gang and about to knock somebody off,' he said.
Calls to defund the police have grown among Democrats since the death of George Floyd last May sparked protests across the country seeking criminal justice reform.
Cities including Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed by Derek Chauvin, and Rochester, where Daniel Prude died at the hands of cops, have sought to partially defund their police services.
However, efforts to defund the police have received criticism as cities across the country have seen spikes in violent crime in the last year.
In December, Biden appeared to blame the 'defund the police' movement for causing Democrats to lose down-ballot races in the November election.
'That's how they beat the living hell out of us across the country, saying that we're talking about defunding the police. We're not. We're talking about holding them accountable,' Biden said in a virtual meeting with civil rights leaders in December.
The president largely opposed the 'defund the police' movement throughout the 2020 presidential election cycle.
Campaign spokesman, Andrew Bates, told The New York Times just a week after Floyd's death that Biden believed more spending was necessary to help improve law enforcement and community policing.
In September, Biden flatly said: 'I'm totally opposed to defunding the police officers. They need more assistance.'
The statements on Tuesday fit within Biden's published criminal justice plan, which calls for spending $300million to fund Community Oriented Policing Services.
The president also wants to invest $1billion per year in juvenile justice reform and eliminate detention as a punishment for status offenses, like truancy, alcohol use and curfew violations for minors.
No comments