How a Biden-Backed Community Policing Bill Wound Up Militarizing Cops
Even before 9/11, police departments were using federal funds to buy SWAT gear
When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, crime in America was climbing. The concept of community policing was growing increasingly popular. Ideally, with community policing, rather than taking a “call-and-response” approach to policing — which focuses on aspects of policing like improving response times to 911 calls — cops walk regular beats. They go to community meetings. They know the names of the principals of the schools in their district, and they know and consult with community and neighborhood leaders. It’s a more proactive form of policing, but one that stresses making cops a part of the places they work.
In 1994 Clinton started a new grant program under the Justice Department called Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS. For its inaugural year, Clinton and leaders in Congress (most notably Sen. Joe Biden) funded it with $148.4 million. The next year funding jumped to $1.42 billion, and it stayed in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion through 1999. COPS grants were mostly intended to go to police departments to hire new police officers, ostensibly for the purpose of implementing more community-oriented policing strategies.
