Administration of Joseph R. Biden, Jr., 2023

December 18, 2023

As part of my administration's Executive order on policing, we committed to create a first- of-its-kind database to track records of law enforcement misconduct so that agencies are able to hire the best personnel. Today I am fulfilling that promise by launching the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database. This database will ensure that records of serious misconduct by Federal law enforcement officers are readily available to agencies considering hiring those officers. We are also working to allow and encourage State, Tribal, local, and Territorial law enforcement agencies to make available and access similar records as part of their hiring processes.

In May 2022, I signed this Executive order to help rebuild trust and deliver the most significant police reform in decades. Since then, we've taken critical steps towards effective, accountable policing, including by requiring that Federal law enforcement agencies ban chokeholds, strengthening use-of-force policies, restricting no-knock warrants, and directing other measures to advance effective, accountable policing that increases public safety.

Protecting public safety depends on trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. By building trust, we can strengthen public safety, and we can more effectively fight crime in our communities. The Executive order is a measure of what we can do together to heal the very soul of this Nation, to address the profound fear and trauma that particularly Black Americans have experienced for generations, and to channel that private pain and public outrage into progress on behalf of all communities.

But we know implementing real and lasting change at the State and local levels requires Congress to act. I urge Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to advance accountability, transparency, and public trust in law enforcement across the Nation. Send it to my desk, and I will sign it.

NOTE: The statement referred to Executive Order 14074.

Categories: Statements by the President : National Law Enforcement Accountability Database, launch.

Subjects: Criminal justice system, reform efforts; Policing best practices, improvement efforts.

DCPD Number: DCPD202301124.

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