What is the Community Oriented Policing Services program?

This appeared in The Millennial Source

With videos of police violence surfacing amid nationwide protests, there have been bipartisan calls for law enforcement agencies to be reformed. These recommended reforms have run the gamut from internal changes within police departments to abolishing the police entirely. With no consensus in sight, it’s clear that policing in the United States is poised to remain a hot button political topic throughout the 2020 election.

One possible reform could be the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, which provides federal grants to local police departments. The program, originally created by presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and signed into law by former President Bill Clinton in 1994, has resulted in billions of federal dollars being spent on funding more police officers across the US.

The politics of policing

President Donald Trump has come out firmly in support of the police, even falsely saying that a 75-year-old man who was seen on video being knocked over by police in Buffalo, New York, could have been “ an ANTIFA provocateur.”

In his time in office, Trump has frequently expressed support for the police and has received gratitude from the…