Congressman Neguse & Congressional Black Caucus Introduce New Comprehensive Police Accountability Bill

The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 will ensure greater accountability in police training practices, improve transparency in police misconduct and designate lynching as a federal crime

Washington D.C.—Congressman Joe Neguse, a member of the House Judiciary Committee and Congressional Black Caucus, joined his CBC colleagues in introducing a new comprehensive effort today to address police brutality. The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 introduced by Congressman Neguse, Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Cory Booker, Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Karen Bass and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, will hold police accountable in court, improve police training by banning chokeholds, change use of force standards, improve transparency into policing by collecting better data, and make lynching a federal crime.

“As a country, we are all feeling the tremendous pain and anguish from the recent killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd,” said Congressman Joe Neguse. “While there is no single policy prescription that will erase decades of systemic racism – it’s time we create structural change with meaningful reforms. I’m proud to join my colleagues in introducing the Justice in Policing Act of 2020, which will provide greater transparency and accountability to prevent these tragedies from happening in the future.”

The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 will:

• Hold police accountable in court by:
• Amending the mens rea requirement in 18 U.S.C. Section 242, the federal criminal statute to prosecute police misconduct, from “willfulness” to a “recklessness” standard;
• Reform qualified immunity so that individuals are not entirely barred from recovering damages when police violate their constitutional rights;
• Improve the use of pattern and practice investigations at the federal level by granting the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division subpoena power and incentivizing state attorneys general to conduct pattern and practice investigations;
• Incentivize states to create independent investigative structures for police involved deaths through grants; and
• Create best practices recommendations based on the Obama 21st Century Policing Task force.

• Improve transparency into policing by collecting better and more accurate data of police misconduct and use-of-force by:
• Creating a National Police Misconduct Registry to prevent problem-officers from changing jurisdictions to avoid accountability; and
• Mandate state and local law enforcement agencies report use of force data, disaggregated by race, sex, disability, religion, age.

• Improve police training and practices by:
• Ending racial and religious profiling;
• Mandating training on racial bias and the duty to intervene;
• Banning no-knock warrants in drug cases;
• Banning chokeholds and carotid holds;
• Changing the standard to evaluate whether law enforcement use of force was justified from whether the force was reasonable to whether the force was necessary;
• Limiting the transfer of military-grade equipment to state and local law enforcement;
• Requiring federal uniformed police officers to wear body cameras; and
• Requiring state and local law enforcement to use existing federal funds to ensure the use of police body cameras.

• Make lynching a federal crime by:
• Making it a federal crime to conspire to violate existing federal hate crimes laws.