![\"Police](\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/police_utah_trump_rally-1.jpg\")
<\/a>Police around the nation are joining on to President Obama\u2019s plan.<\/p><\/div>\n
Announced Friday, 53 police departments around the country have signed on so far to the White House-pressed Police Data Initiative, a plan by President Obama to make crime-fighting more technology-driven and accountable to higher-ups, but that is seen by critics as a not-so-subtle federal takeover of community policing.<\/p>\n
The program, which comes by way of a recommendation from the Task Force on 21st Century Policing that Obama launched in December \u2013 which was created by the White House in response to widely reported instances of police-community clashes and alleged cop discrimination against minorities \u2013 is aimed at enhancing \u201cdata transparency and analysis\u201d among police departments around the nation.<\/p>\n
In White House jargon<\/a>, according to a May 2015 \u201cLaunching the Police Data Initiative\u201d press release: \u201cThrough the initiative, key stakeholders are establishing a community of practice that will allow for knowledge sharing, community-sourced problem solving and the establishment of documented best practices that can serve as examples for police departments nationwide.\u201d<\/p>\n The ultimate goal?<\/p>\n \u201cIncreased trust and impact,\u201d the White House reported.<\/p>\n The initiative in 2015 kicked off in Camden, New Jersey, a \u201cpredominantly black city\u201d that\u2019s \u201cone of America\u2019s most violent and also among its poorest,\u201d NewsOne reported<\/a>. Then, 20 other communities joined on to the program as well, which included training from federal authorities on how to gather and use data to \u201cincrease transparency, build community trust and support innovation,\u201d the White House reported.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s grown. Now, the number of participating police departments has jumped to 53.<\/p>\n And critics say it\u2019s little more than a federalization of local police because it puts the White House at the helm of deciding such matters as cameras on cop uniforms and whether or not local jurisdictions accept equipment from the military.<\/p>\n Critics also say the data that\u2019s being gathered at the local levels will lead to a massive federal database, overseen by federal authorities, who will then decide whether the individual police department is pursuing crime-fighting techniques in a manner that doesn\u2019t discriminate against minorities.<\/p>\n As the New American<\/a> put it back in March of 2015: \u201cThe plan \u2026 will use U.S. taxpayer dollars to deploy \u2018experts\u2019 and \u2018researchers\u2019 charged with training officers to act in a manner that the [Department of Justice] deems just \u2013 in essence doing the bidding of the Obama administration. Officially, the Justice Department will be helping local officials \u2018fight crime\u2019 under the scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n And as the Blaze reported<\/a> in August of 2015: \u201cPresident Barack Obama\u2019s administration has begun the second phase in federalizing the police.\u201d<\/p>\n Attorney General Loretta Lynch underscored in October 2015 the need for the federal government to collect data from local police departments, in order to \u201cimprove the accuracy and consistency\u201d of how cops conduct their business.<\/p>\n \u201cThe [DOJ\u2019s] position and the administration\u2019s position has consistently been that we need to have national, consistent data,\u201d she said, in a statement on the Justice Department website<\/a>. \u201cThis information is useful because it helps us see trends, it helps us promote accountability and transparency. We\u2019re also going further in developing standards for publishing information about deaths in custody as well, because transparency and accountability are helped by this kind of national data.\u201d<\/p>\n