A new bill introduced in the Senate will create a national database of police misconduct. The National Police Misconduct Database and Transparency in Hiring Act was introduced by Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley with the goal of keeping officers with a history of misconduct from getting a job at another department.
The database will be publicly accessible and allow anybody to pull records of misconduct, inappropriate use of force, or allegations of discrimination.
"We can't legislate away racism or wave a wand to change culture, but we can make sure that there are mechanisms in place to hold people accountable for wrongdoing," Merkley said in a statement. "A national database of police misconduct will be a critical tool for accountability—one of many reforms we need to honor the lives of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others who should be with us today."
There is currently no database, despite a call from Human Rights Watch, to create one 20 years ago. Without a database to track instances of police misconduct, it is difficult to know how many officers with charges of misconduct on their records leave one department and go to another.
An investigation conducted last year USA Today found that 32 officers with serious charges of misconduct went to other departments where they rose to the rank of police chief or sheriff.
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