Police departments across the country are afraid to use tools that could help prevent crime from getting out of hand due to possible backlash from the government and public.

Former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis shared that message in Washington on Wednesday during a hearing on the lessons learned 10 years after the Boston Marathon bombings.

Davis, the city’s police leader at the time of the tragedy, called for a “clear direction” from the feds on how departments should be using technology in policing. He pointed to how some cities and towns in Massachusetts, including Boston, have banned the use of facial recognition.

“I understand the concerns about privacy in those situations,” Davis said, “But we must remember, as a government, that the police are the security team for the poor people in our cities. It’s scary to think that a political body has eliminated the use of an effective tool to solve crime at the local level.”

Wednesday’s Senate hearing focused on the 2013 bombings and the impacts on emergency preparedness and homeland security.

During her opening statement, New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan, chair of the Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight Committee, remembered the five victims who died during and in the aftermath of the tragedy — Martin Richard, Lingzi Lu, Krystle Campbell, Sean Collier and Dennis Simmonds.

“As a New Englander,” the Democrat said, “I am proud of the rapid response to the horror of the attack on that day, and last week, on the tenth anniversary of the bombing, I was proud to watch joyful crowds urging on determined race participants. However, there is still much work to do.”

While entertainment venues have bolstered security over time, it’s not the case for other spaces, said Davis, now the president and CEO of the Edward Davis Company, a security consulting and crisis management firm advising companies on risk mitigation, compliance and emergency response.

Davis urged Congress to consider expanding the SAFETY Act to schools and places of worship. The legislation, enacted in 2002 following 9/11, provides incentives for the development and deployment of anti-terrorism technologies by creating systems of risk and litigation management.

“We are surprised how woefully inadequate some of the places are,” Davis said. “It doesn’t take much to get them up to a level [of preparedness] that might dissuade somebody from attacking them, but it’s sort of the attitude that ‘This can’t happen here’ that we battle.”

The country is “awashed” in threats, said Kerry Sleeper, a former FBI deputy assistant director. The National Threat Operations Center receives roughly 3,000 reports a day, he noted.

“We had a remarkable focus post-9/11 federal, state and local partners coming together across the broad public safety spectrum, after Boston,” Sleeper said. “Unfortunately, because of COVID … many critical functions and meetings that should be taking place to stay ahead of the threat are not happening.”