12 February 2016, 17:29 GMT
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The Obama administration is offering up to $8 million in grants to support community police groups across the United States, the US Department of Justice said in a press release on Thursday.
"The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS)… announced the opening of the application period for its Community Policing Development Program," the release stated. "Up to $8 million is available to fund projects."
The funding was approved to implement the recommendations of the President’s Task Force on 21st century policing, the release explained.
"These recommendations aim to strengthen public trust and foster strong relationships between local law enforcement and communities, while also promoting effective crime reduction," it explained.
Since 1995, the COPS office has invested more than $14 billion to advance community policing, including grants to more than 13,000 state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies to hire and redeploy more than 127,000 officers, the release added.
In 2015, police in the United States killed more than 1,100 individuals, according to the Killed by Police monitoring website.
