President Donald Trump used another one of his executive orders to create a committee dealing with how to enforce the law equally and without bias, according to Tom Jackman of the Washington Post. With endorsements from organizations like the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and others, the law would deal with equal protection, adding more people of color and females to the police force, and using 21st century techniques to fight crime.
“The thrust of the order,” said Nina J. Ginsberb, a Virginia-based lawyer who is president of the defense lawyers’ association, “begs the question as to how interested this commission will be in solving the deep and structural problems in America’s criminal justice system, as opposed to simply delivering on certain law enforcement requests.”
The U.S. attorney general will have the authority to determine the composition and the procedures for the functioning of the commission.
The measure was signed in October 2019, and those in charge have less than 10 months to complete their work. A similar bill is pending in Congress, the Dec. 23, 2019 story noted.
According to the article, the bill calls for review of policing poor communities, handling of the homeless issue, the needs of the mentally ill, and mass incarceration
Finding a way to make this happen presents a challenge not just for law enforcement, but other government agencies, said Terry Cunningham, deputy executive director for the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
Cunningham said that working groups have to find a bipartisan way in Congress to implement all of these things. “We’ll have their report, but how do you get it funded?”
The story reported finding funds requires a bipartisan panel and when the bill goes before the various committees the concern is that certain elements of the bill be phased-out. Across the aisle participation has been hard to achieve when working to iron-out delicate issues. This bill, however, affects the whole country. Law enforcement, along with the Justice Department, will try to get their way.
