In 2020, a movement began with the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and many others at the hands of law enforcement. People have demanded change and calling for state legislatures to impose greater accountability for the deaths police are responsible for. The Council of State Governments, published an article of how states are taking action and that has progressed even more throughout the year. “As of July 17, 2020, 368 policing-related bills have been introduced in 29 states.” This is to help prevent more deaths and reform the criminal justice system.
The death of George Floyd resulted in many states, the first ones beingCalifornia, Delaware, Georgia, Minnesota, New Jersey and Tennessee, to ban chokeholds and carotid restraints. Other states, Colorado, Iowa, Oregon and Utah also followed suit. His death has sparked a movement that was long overdue for violence and racism against individuals during arrest. Other legislation being considered in states is the ability for other officers to intervene if they feel one of their own is taking unnecessary measures.
The death of Breonna Taylor also happened at the hands of law enforcement when she was shot multiple times after officers executed a “no-knock” search warrant as part of a drug investigation. After this incident, legislations have been passed in Illinois, New York and other states to prohibit the use of “no-knock” search warrants, preventing this situation from occurring again.
Other legislations have been called into action including establishing crisis stabilization units as alternatives to arrest for people with mental illnesses, mandating Crisis Intervention Training for police officers, establishing critical incident review processes for officer-involved shootings, prohibiting the hiring of officers who have records of serious misconduct and establishing task forces and other groups to study particular issues related to policing in order to deliver policy recommendations to state legislators. Colorado’s SB20-217 bill was enacted this past year that holds all other bills to ambitious standards. This bill requires all police officers to wear body cameras and release relevant recordings to the public within 21 days after the law enforcement agency receives a complaint of misconduct. It also creates a statewide database of police contacts and uses force, as well as cases in which an officer resigned while under investigation for violating department policy. Finally, it limits the circumstances in which police officers may fire or use force during protests and increases an officer’s exposure to civil legal liability if they are found to have infringed on a person’s constitutional rights.
There are many other bills and legislations that can be passed to reform the criminal justice system and to relieve tension and racism when it comes to arrests and deaths at the hands of law enforcement. This system was created to protect and serve the people, and many states are working hard to get back to this. Reforming and training police are steps in this process, while other steps are in the changing of laws and accepted actions used during arrests. The time to act is now to help re-create a system that was meant to keep people feeling safe and protected.