Policing Policy in Congress: An Overview Since 2020 and Consensus on De-escalation

Since the summer of 2020, which saw the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota, the public has cried out for police system changes. Calls for accountability, transparency, and even “defunding” of agencies that ran afoul of citizens’ rights—and even of those that did not—took center stage as protests connected with the Black Lives Matter movement gripped an America already in the midst of a global pandemic.

Congress and state legislatures were operating mostly remotely, as was the rest of the nation outside of those deemed “essential” workers. Families felt the serious pains of layoffs, changing social and economic conditions, and isolation from their peers, their loved ones, and even just from their regular barista or local grocery store clerk. All of this is to say, with little to nowhere else to be, our eyes were on our screens.

Television, phone, and computer use dominated 2020 and 2021, and with that territory came, of course, the media presented so readily and rapidly to us. At the time, it showed scenes of social unrest, rage, and disappointment at a law enforcement system that seemed to finally be reaching a breaking point. Agencies needed to implement change themselves, or they would be made to by external forces.

Particularly for police agencies in and around Minnesota, which have been marked by police misconduct in the years before and since George Floyd, pressure mounted to stand with those done wrong by abuse of power, and work for change. From occurrences of violence in the streets of Chicago, Illinois and Kenosha, Wisconsin; to the rippling effects from protests of Floyds’ murder in cities like Indianapolis, Indiana; Columbus, Ohio; and Detroit, Michigan; it was clear that change was needed to right the scales of justice.

Doubtless, this type of change is easier said than done. Especially for those in Congress, the division of power between the chambers—a Republican Senate and a Democratic House—were already unlikely to agree. Furthering this is the simple fact that most policing is local in nature and even more so in practice. Of the approximately 700,000 sworn law enforcement officers in the United States, only about 137,000 of those are federal employees. The rest are state or local law enforcement, whose protocols, practices, and trainings are dictated as such.

In many states and localities, reforms were made, but the federal landscape in D.C. was different.

The two “competing” policing bills—Democrats’ George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and Republicans’ Just and Unifying Solutions To Invigorate Communities Everywhere (JUSTICE) Act—were unlikely to meet anywhere in the middle, with Democrats believing that the Republican bill did not do enough, and Republicans believing that the Democrat bill overstepped grossly into the individual decisions and autonomy of the more than half a million non-federal law enforcement officers in communities throughout the country.

Unfortunately, this was realized, and the 2021 efforts of Congress to reach a compromise on policing broke down, and nothing was signed into law. In 2022, President Joe Biden issued an executive order on policing, but as the separation of powers would rightly have it, such an action cannot have as broad of an impact as legislation passed by Congress. The same was true of the executive order former President Donald Trump issued in 2020 on the same topic. Therefore, it remained to be seen what Congress may do, if anything, to contribute to the top-of-mind issue of addressing the evolving state of policing in the country. Fortunately for one of the multiple recommendations outlined in the original President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing that former President Barack Obama commissioned—de-escalation training—the future would be bright.

In the spring of 2022, the bipartisan duo of Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) introduced their Law Enforcement De-Escalation Training Act of 2022 along with five other original cosponsors. Over the following months, with advocacy from outside groups of law enforcement—including the National Sheriffs’ Association and the Fraternal Order of Police—think tank researchers, and mental health organizations, the cosponsorship list grew to more than 20, nearly evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. The Senate finally passed the bill by unanimous consent in August of 2022.

The legislation authorized the appropriation of $34 million to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to fully develop a de-escalation curriculum and recommendations, as well as $90 million to be granted to police departments for the purposes of implementing such trainings. Importantly—because as with any federal grant funds, oversight is critical—the legislation also included requirements for the National Institute of Justice and the Government Accountability Office to evaluate the implementation of the programs that the funding is for, ensure that the impact is as intended, and make recommendations for any needed changes to the program itself.

The bill would meet more resistance in the House, where it would sustain a first failed vote on suspension in late November, followed by a successful vote under a rule just over two weeks later. The day before the second vote in the House, the Biden administration put out a Statement of Administration Policy supporting the passage of the legislation, identifying that “[b]ecause advancing effective, accountable policing builds public trust and strengthens public safety, the Administration calls for swift passage of this common-sense bipartisan legislation.”

Unsurprisingly, then, President Biden signed the bill into law before the close of 2022. This legislation and its broad support across both parties and both chambers of Congress is evidence that despite the contestation over policing policy in the years since 2020, there are opportunities for consensus and progress to support law enforcement and justice simultaneously.

As the implementation of the Cornyn-Whitehouse bill continues through the DOJ, the next step remains to ensure that those communities most in need of de-escalation training programs are able to access the funds and use them for the benefit of their officers together with their communities. Each step in this process is critical to the protection of public safety, to the furtherance of justice, and to the future of law enforcement standards. As a result, we hope to see the benefits of such smart investments now and for years to come.