On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that President Joe Biden’s crime plan is “a vague gesture,” and that while he supports gun control, “I’m not sure it’s a crime or a homicide reduction measure very effectively.”
Brooks stated, “Well, it’s tough for a president to control crime. It is mostly an issue — but it is going to be a big voting issue, no question. … I would give the Biden administration maybe a B-. I mean, I support gun control. I’m not sure it’s a crime or a homicide reduction measure very effectively. I’m for some police reform. I’m glad they’re using COVID money to allow police forces to increase the number of officers. There’s clear evidence that, if you increase the number of police, you get less crime. And — but that has to be accompanied by police reform. And so you’ve got to do a bunch of things all at once to have a just way to reduce crime that’s not a penalty on the local communities. And that takes involvement on multiple fronts. And I thought this was a vague gesture, more than that kind of an intense involvement.”
He added that Biden has moved thinking away “from last summer’s belief that there was such a thing as a free lunch, you could defund the police or reduce the police and not have some after-effect.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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