More than fifty progressive advocacy groups in the United States have sent letters to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
He is warned that he can lose many voices from black Americans if he stops promising police reforms.
US police practices and police racism have been a topic of discussion since black detainee George Floyd died in Minneapolis in late May at the hands of a white police officer.
Biden’s US criminal justice agenda has also been under the magnifying glass since Floyd’s death. Written at the initiative of organizations such as the Black Lives Matter movement, the signatories are critical of Biden’s plan to pump $ 300 million into a federal police project.
The communities that should benefit from that project have been better helped to address the problems behind crime rates than with more agents, the organizations say.
Among other things, Biden has proposed banning the use of strangleholds by police officers, not providing the police with more military weapons and making officers more accountable.
Democrats have made similar bills in Congress. However, Biden refuses to go along with protesters’ demands to take budgets from the police.
According to activists, the money now spent on the police can be better spent on affordable housing and education, among other things.