Republican Senator of Arkansas Tom Cotton plans to introduce a bill that would provide a monetary incentive to police officers for good behavior.
Cotton told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview that the bill he plans to introduce is called the “Better Community Policing Recognition Act” and will make its way to Senate committee. The legislation would create an annual $5 million fund for state, local and tribal officers who are nominated for exemplary policing practices.
Local police departments or state attorneys general would nominate officers who “exemplify best practices or come up with significant innovations to reduce the excessive use of force or improve community policing strategies,” according to Cotton’s team.
“Police officers are being unfairly demonized across the country as calls for defunding departments grow, despite the fact that the vast majority of officers are selfless public servants who are already underfunded,” said Cotton, an Army veteran. “It’s never been more important to recognize those officers who exemplify the best kind of policing. My bill will reward the policemen and women who are working hard to improve their service and win the public’s trust.”
“Those officers who go above and beyond to make their communities better and safer for everyone would be eligible to be nominated by their local police department or by their state attorney general,” Cotton’s team added.
Cotton’s proposal comes days after President Donald Trump rolled out an executive order on police reform. The executive order, through the Justice Department, incentivizes jurisdictions to ban the use of chokeholds when detaining suspects unless the life of the officer is put at risk, Politico reported.
Trump’s executive order came after protests and riots spread across the country and led to the deaths of dozens of people. The demonstrations were sparked after the death of George Floyd, a black man, who died after a white police officer detained him by placing his knee on Floyd’s neck.
Mainstream Democrat politicians and protestors criticized Trump’s executive order for not taking enough action, such as defunding the police.
“Americans know the truth: Without police, there is chaos. Without law, there is anarchy. And without safety, there is catastrophe,” Trump said, adding that “we need leaders at every level of government who have the moral clarity to state these obvious facts.”
“Americans want law and order, and they demand law and order. They may not say it, they may not be talking about it, but that’s what they want,” he said. “Some of them don’t know that that’s what they want but that’s what they want.”
