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The president will issue a decree that will create a police commission, which he has promised to create if elected.
Another order Biden signs will reinstate an Obama-era policy prohibiting the transfer of military equipment to local police departments. The ordinance signed in 2015 prevented federal agencies from providing local police with certain types of military-grade equipment, such as grenade launchers and bayonets. The order came on the heels of criticism of a “militarized” police response to civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, following the death of Michael Brown – an unarmed black teenager shot dead by a police officer. Trump lifted the equipment ban in 2017.
The President will also seek to improve conditions of detention and eliminate the use of private prisons. Biden had campaigned to eliminate the federal government’s use of private prisons.
Biden will also issue order disavowing discrimination against the community of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans, which the document says comes “particularly in light of the rhetoric around the Covid-19 pandemic “. It will issue a memorandum urging housing and urban development to take action to promote an equitable housing policy.
Biden’s history of votes in Congress on criminal justice and prison reform issues has cast a long shadow over his presidential campaign. And Tuesday’s actions, coming less than a week into his presidency, appear to be an apparent attempt to correct what he admitted to be one of his shortcomings.
“You know I’ve been in this fight for a long time. It’s not just about voting rights. It goes to the criminal justice system,” Biden said on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2019. “I don’t. Haven’t always done it. been right. I know we haven’t always done it right, but I’ve always tried. “
Biden helped draft the 1994 Crime Bill, which set strict federal sentencing standards and which critics say led to an era of mass incarceration.
In a 1993 Senate speech in support of the Crime Bill, Biden warned of “predators on our streets.”
“We have predators on our streets that society has in fact, in part because of its negligence, created,” Biden said. “They’re beyond the pale a lot of these people, beyond the pale,” Biden continued. “And that’s a sad commentary on society. We have no choice but to take them out of society.”
Biden’s vice president, who was once her opponent in the 2020 presidential race, said in 2019 that she believed the bill was causing mass incarceration.
Then-California senator Kamala Harris said she disagreed with Biden, who said at the time that the crime bill “did not generate any money. mass incarceration “.
“This crime bill – this 1994 crime bill – it has contributed to mass incarceration in our country. He encouraged and it was the first time we had a federal three-strike law. He funded the construction of more prisons in the states. Unfortunately, I don’t agree, ”Harris said.
Biden also expressed his unequivocal support, in 1994 and subsequent years, for billions of dollars in law funding for the construction of state prisons, including in his home state of Delaware. He argued in 1994 that the law should include less money for building prisons than Republicans wanted to spend – but he stressed that he too wanted to spend billions.
He was also a long-time supporter of a police bill of rights measure while he was a senator, which critics say made it more difficult to investigate police officers for misconduct.
CNN’s Daniel Dale and Andrew Kaczynski contributed to this report.
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