Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is pushing forward with legislation to hire 100,000 more police officers.
According to a press release from the lawmaker’s office, the resolution is intended to “boost police morale” and “keep American families safe.”
As violent crime continues to plague the country, communities and law enforcement officers are under siege. Homicides are dramatically increasing across American cities, and violent crime is hitting generational highs. Meanwhile, police departments are facing million-dollar budget cuts, violence against police officers is increasing nationwide, and low morale among officers is causing departments to struggle with recruiting new applicants.
Among other items, the bill would:
- Provide grants to local communities to support hiring an additional 100,000 additional law enforcement officers to protect American families
- Increase maximum penalties for assaulting federal officers by 50%
- Develop programs to protect the privacy and personal information of judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement officials
- Increase penalties for damage to federal courthouses and unauthorized access to areas where federal judges work, reside, or visit
On Wednesday, Hawley explained that “all but one” Senate Democrat voted for an amendment that would allocate funding to his bill. He, therefore, invited each of his Democratic colleagues to become cosponsors of the legislation — an opportunity to “acknowledge they’ve been wrong” for their nods toward defunding the police.
All but one Senate Democrat voted tonight for my amendment for 100,000 NEW cops on the street – so I’m inviting each of them to become cosponsors of my legislation. Here’s an opportunity for Dems to acknowledge they’ve been wrong the whole last year. We need MORE police funding pic.twitter.com/3uCW5z7W7Y
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) August 11, 2021
Many progressive Democrats continue to push for the “reimaging” — if not outright abolition — of conventional law enforcement services.
Last week, for example, Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) stated that she supports “defunding the police” while paying tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars for her own private security.
“I’m going to make sure I have security because I know I have had attempts on my life,” Bush told CBS News. “And I have too much work to do. There are too many people that need help right now for me to allow that. So if I end up spending $200,000, if I spend ten more dollars on it, you know what? I get to be here, to do the work. So suck it up. And defunding the police has to happen; we need to defund the police and put that money into social safety nets, because we’re trying to save lives.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) recently remarked that she “does believe that we need to reallocate resources away” from police, then dismissed concerns about rising crime rates.
“We are seeing these headlines about percentage increases,” she claimed. “Now, I want to say that any amount of harm is unacceptable and too much. But I also want to make sure that this hysteria, you know, that this doesn’t drive a hysteria and that we look at these numbers in context so that we can make responsible decisions about what to allocate in that context.”
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