The legislation, called the Justice in Policing Act of 2020, includes an array of measures aimed at boosting law enforcement accountability, changing police practices and curbing profiling.
The House Judiciary Committee has planned a hearing Wednesday, the first on police issues since the protests broke out. The Senate Judiciary Committee has a hearing slated for June 16.The bill contains several provisions that would make it easier to hold officers accountable for misconduct in civil and criminal court.
Another section would change federal law so that victims of excessive force or other violations need only show that officers “recklessly” deprived them of their rights. The current statute requires victims to show that officers’ actions were “willful.”The bill would also expand the Justice Department’s powers to investigate and prosecute police misconduct, according to the outline, which said those capabilities had been “undermined by the Trump administration.
Additionally, the outline covers broad proposals to prevent discrimination by law enforcement, creating a cause of action for racial profiling in civil court, conditioning federal funding for state and local law enforcement on anti-discrimination policies and requiring the U.S. attorney general to collect data on racial profiling.
“While there is no single policy prescription that will erase the decades of systemic racism and excessive policing,” the outline reads, “it’s time we create structural change with meaningful reforms.”Paul Kane contributed to this report.
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