ST. LOUIS — Democrat Rep. Cori Bush on Monday introduced sweeping legislation to overhaul public safety by spending $10 billion to grow emergency response programs led by health officials, social workers and community groups, providing alternatives to police and prisons.
Bush’s “People’s Response Act” would establish a new federal agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services tasked with treating crimes such as gun violence and drug abuse as public health concerns. The goal, according to the bill, is to address “root causes of those issues rather than imposing criminal punishment.”
The legislation would carve out $2.5 billion in grants through 2026 to help governments and social service agencies hire and train social workers, behavioral and mental health counselors, and substance abuse counselors who would respond to public safety emergencies.
An additional $7.5 billion in grants would fund “crisis response” programs that aim to limit interactions with police and courts, including community-led conflict intervention and de-escalation, jail diversion and work training programs, housing assistance and educational programs.
The proposal has the support of 13 Democrats in the 435-member U.S. House of Representatives as well as dozens of advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Drug Policy Alliance and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Bush, a Ferguson activist who unseated Democratic incumbent William Lacy Clay last year to become the first Black woman representing Missouri in Congress, said the legislation would “save lives,” citing instances across the U.S. in which police responding to a 911 call killed or injured someone experiencing a mental health issue.
“For far too long, our current carceral, misguided approach has had devastating effects, particularly for young people and people living with disabilities and communities of color,” Bush said in an interview with the Post-Dispatch.
“Those lives could have been saved with a different policy decision, and different choices, different investments.”
A nurse and a pastor who once experienced homelessness, Bush said she often had worked with people with mental health issues. She said she was required to call police in cases of emergency, but that officers were not trained to work with someone experiencing a mental crisis.
“I don’t need you to look at it from the lens of ‘control and contain,’ I need help with de-escalation,” she said. “That’s the point. We need somebody with the training to do the work.
“Instead of law enforcement being dispatched to the community, there would be medical doctors and nurses and social workers. And those folks who are skilled and trained to be able to work in those areas.”
The funds would be administered by a new agency within HHS, the Division of Community Safety, which would support research into alternatives to incarceration and policing, as well as coordinate programs underway within HHS and other federal agencies.
The division would be overseen by a community advisory board made up of advocates for policing alternatives and people with experience in the criminal justice system, Bush said. Those include people who have been arrested or detained, people who have been “directly impacted by police violence” like police shootings, and people affected by other forms of violence, including gun crimes, domestic violence and sexual assault.
Bush, a firebrand on social media, has often come under fire from critics for her calls to reduce police budgets and redirect the money to social services. Asked about the criticism and the $10 billion in spending in her bill, Bush pointed to spending in past decades on policing and criminalization of drugs.
“We spent over $1 trillion on the war on drugs and almost $200 billion a year on policing, prisons and criminalization,” Bush said in an email. “What this bill is calling for is that we stop funding destruction and start funding life.”
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Bush’s “People’s Response Act” would establish a new federal agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services tasked with treating crimes such as gun violence and drug abuse as public health concerns. The goal, according to the bill, is to address “root causes of those issues rather than imposing criminal punishment.” Huh??
We have all seen the effect of giving generations of people, FREE welfare, medicate, housing, food, transportation and even phones.
These people have no honor or respect for others. They are only out for themselves and what they can get free, paid for by the taxpayers.
The root cause is that these people have lived off of the taxpayer for generations and think that they are OWED everything and do NOT have to work or obey the law or police officers. It IS NOT “racist” NOT to support someone from cradle to grave.
But yet they demand accountability and responsibility from police. But no accountability and responsibility from the 13%.
Because
DAT
BE
RACIST!
RHEE!
Can’t you just see the criminals licking their chops for something like this? With the democrats in control it’s a freeloaders wildest dream come true. That 13% is bringing this country closer and closer to that next civil/race war that people have been stocking up for for years now. When it happens there won’t be 13% left to further destroy this country.
I HOPE to hell you are right!
Taking a kinder, gentler approach to crime is not the answer, Cori. Criminals are hardliners—they do not care about their actions nor the damage caused by them. Criminals are getting more and more violent, so this meek, mild-mannered approach to dealing with them is just another avenue for them to exploit.
IF anything, we neeed to get HARSHER as hell, on criminals.. NOT ‘gentler..
go pound sand in somalia wench.
Nothing better than limp wristed liberal social workers to act as human shields for the police department who have to confront the spawn of liberal social engineering.
Maybe she will be the first one to find out if her whacky views will work. I doubt nobody of any importance will even miss her.
IF i was the family of a social worker, KILLED CAUSE OF witches like this, pushing this nonsense, i’d SUE THE HELL out of her, as an ACCESSORY!
It is so easy to say a few billion here and a few billion there when the money is not yours and you could care less about it. If you have a rabid dog you do not pet it, feed it and try to make learn new commands; get rid of the rabid dog, get rid of the rabies.
A criminal is a criminal no matter what and will do whatever as long as the criminal thinks he can get away with it. Now with this new plan, a criminal will do whatever cause he knows the law is more lenient and all the criminal needs to do is act like having mental problems and problem solved for the criminal. What is a year or so in a mental institute with free everything instead of years and years in prison.
“[M]ental institute”? There are none left, they’ve ALL been closed because the people that ran them were IDIOTS! I will agree that some criminals don’t belong in a prison but who decides? Pshrinks think EVERYONE should be under their care and lawyers/judges ARE NOT QUALIFIED to make the judgement! So I ask again, WHO DECIDES?
Hence we need to go BACK to the days of public whuppings.. Public hangings, and where the death Penalty WAS A DETERRENT!
So I guess Mr. Bush would ask residents to wait for a social worker to arrive rather than the police while they’re being robbed, raped, assaulted, or murdered? Wow, the ignorance is mind-boggling- and I’m a moderate Dem. So if there’s an armed intruder in his mom’s house he doesn’t expect a police response because the poor guy/girl perp is a victim of systemic racism? That’s just crazy talk. Here in Pasadena, CA our PD has social workers on call when dealing with mentally ill and homeless calls. Responding officers can ask for assistance- after they’ve restrained an out-of-control suspect. I worked as a speech therapist with disabled adults for several years, and those grown men can be very strong. When they’re having an episode they’re downright dangerous- same goes for drugged and or mentally ill suspects. So mom’s supposed to suck it up because a police response is threatening? Again, wow, that’s crazy.
I say fine. THEN PULL ALL and any armed security WITCHES LIKE HER have.. AND SEE how they like having to wait on ‘social workers’, rather than COPS!
>”Proposal Would Put $10B Behind Social Work, Public Health Alternatives To Police”<
Let me know how that's working out for y'all when the bodies of your "Social workers" start piling up.
“Instead of law enforcement being dispatched to the community, there would be medical doctors and nurses and social workers. And those folks who are skilled and trained to be able to work in those areas.” After the police of course “clear the scene” so the responders don’t get shot at!
Ask Oakland how that’s working for them, their Anti-Police leader was accosted by robbers trying to take away their cameras. Too funny, yup, these idiots don’t have a clue, it’s all give me, give me…
An equal opportunity offer for anyone that proposes yet another federal bureaucracy on top of the hundreds / thousands for which we are already overpaying.
First, tar and feather.
Second, be burned at the stake.
Third, be hung.
Then, and only then, receive a fair trial.
You forgot after hanging.. WE must draw and quarter them!
Then shoot, stab, poison and put though a wood chipper..
Gotta be sure 🙂
Dummycrats are such stupid liars that’s it’s comical. They started this defund the cops ****, now they say it’s the republicans who want to defund the cops. Not one single republican wanted to defund the cops, not even Romney. And now once again the proposals to defund the cops are coming from dummycrats. I really don’t care what the dummycrats do to their own states. They’ve already ran them into the ground so I say let them finish the destruction of their own states. Just don’t send their worthless dummycrat people to other states that are doing fine because they are republican controlled states.
THEY honestly believe, “YES WE the voters are just that dumb”, that we will believe THEM over our own ears and eyes!
Cori has made the choice to proceed to fail, sad. Unfortunately everyone will pay for it with cash and blood. When will someone standup against this insanity.
Okay! Let’s see how well it works in St. Louis for a year or two, and then decide whether or not it’s a good idea.
Libtards never care if it ‘works’ or not.. ONCE THEY get their insane ideas implemented, they PUSH AND PUSH TO get them implemented any other areas they can get it done in.