Psaki said Monday that President Joe Biden's proposed budget carries a "significant increase in funding to support police departments, support the fighting of crime, and is significantly increased from former President Trump."
Violent crime is one of many concerns facing the Biden Administration, which has claimed the problem is the fault of the pandemic and widespread gun ownership.
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High-profile offenses include not only streams of retail theft, such as coordinated works with dozens of criminals looting a single store, but increasing murder rates in large cities across the country.
"This is sort of similar to the crime spike that we saw over the summer, and one of the president's biggest pushes to address that was the Department of Justice strike teams that were sent out to five cities," a reporter said during Monday's briefing. "Since those strike forces were assembled in July, have they accomplished anything?"
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Psaki responded that the strike forces were transferred only to handle gun violence, pointed to a $139 million grant program that will employ more than 1,000 officers across the country, and again said the pandemic is a cause for the problem.
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"We know that we've seen over the course of time — we'll let other people determine what the cause and effect is — we know we've seen an increase in crime over the course of the pandemic," she said. "What the president has been focused on doing is working to ensure there's funding to support local cops, to support local jurisdictions, to ensure that law enforcement at the federal level is a partner both in the short and long term to address either these spikes in crime or gun violence."
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The President's budget includes "an increase, significantly," over what former Trump proposed during his term in office, Psaki added.
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On Thursday Biden said police officers and first responders who do not want the COVID-19 vaccine should stay home and be dismissed.
Talking during a presidential CNN town hall, moderator Anderson Cooper noted that as many as one in three emergency responders in some major cities are refusing to comply with city vaccine mandates.
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"I'm wondering where you stand on that," Cooper said. "Should police officers, first responders be mandated to get vaccines? And if not, should they be mandated to stay at home, let go?"
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"Yes and yes," Biden replied, going on to insinuate that he imposed his questionable vaccine mandate only as a last resort.
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