U.S. SENATE – U.S. Senator Steve Daines cosponsored a major police reform bill in the Senate, the JUSTICE Act, which will help restore confidence between communities and law enforcement by increasing accountability, transparency and commonsense training.
Click HERE for the video statement.
“The men and women who serve our communities in law enforcement put their lives on the line every day to protect our families, and a few bad actors have reflected poorly upon the values of their service,” Daines said. ”We must work to restore confidence between our communities and law enforcement, and this bipartisan bill does just that by increasing accountability, transparency and training. This provides real solutions to what we’re facing today and will help ensure a safe and equal justice system for every American.”
The JUSTICE Act seeks to reform law enforcement practices by improving officer training and hiring, discouraging the use of certain tactics, and adding new reporting requirements when tactics such as Use of Force and No Knock Warrants are used, among other things.
The JUSTICE Act:
- Strengthens training methods and tactics throughout law enforcement communities, specifically in regards to de-escalation of force and the duty to intervene.
- Reforms hiring practices by ensuring departments have prior disciplinary records of anyone they are hiring, as well as ensuring providing more resources to ensure the makeup of police departments more closely matches the communities they serve.
- Reduces grants for states that fail to use body cameras
- Requires best practices for hiring, firing, suspension, and discipline of law enforcement officers.
- Requires a full report to the FBI after any incident where a law enforcement officer discharges his or her weapon or used force
- Requires the collection of data on where and why no knock warrants are used
- Makes lynching a federal crime
- Creates two commissions to study and offer solutions to a range of challenges facing black men and boys as well as the criminal justice system
To read the full bill click HERE.
Senator Daines also joined a Senate resolution that condemns the killing of George Floyd. The resolution states how horrific and inconsistent with the values expected of law enforcement the incident was. The incident reflects poorly upon other law enforcement officers. The resolution also opposes defunding police.