NACDL - Policing Reform

Policing Reform

NACDL advocated for legislation to increase police transparency and accountability and to prevent excessive force.

In June 2020, Colorado’s legislature passed sweeping police reforms in the aftermath of nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd. SB20-217, which NACDL supported along with a large, diverse coalition of organizations, enacts several provisions to prevent excessive force by the police and increase transparency and accountability. Key provisions include: ending qualified immunity; mandating body cameras by 2023 and making video of police misconduct publicly available; requiring data collection and public reporting on policing; limiting use of deadly force by officers, requiring officers to intervene to stop deadly force; decertifying officers who use deadly force or other misconduct; creating a database to prevent rehiring of officers engaged in misconduct; and protecting protestors from police use of tear gas and projectiles.

Related Webinars

Disrupting Minority Report: How to Push Back on the Use of Predictive Analytics in Policing
Recently, NACDL published a report titled Garbage In, Gospel Out: How Data-Driven Policing Technologies Entrench Historic Racism and ‘Tech-wash’ Bias in the Criminal Legal System which laid out the historic biases that these systems exploit and recommends that the systems not be used. On this panel you will hear from experts who shared their experience in Chicago and Los Angeles with the NACDL Task Force on Predictive Policing and how they have pushed back.

Shakeer Rahman, Lawyer & Community Organizer, Stop LAPD Spying Coalition and Practitioner Fellow at the Digital Civil Society Lab, Stanford PACS

Chaclyn Hunt, Civil Rights Attorney & Director of the Youth/Police Project, Invisible Institute

Kevin Vogeltanz, Vogeltanz Law

Moderated by: Jumana Musa, Director, Fourth Amendment Center, NACDL

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A Year in Police Reform: Past Successes & Looking Ahead
Over the past year, amid continued police violence and the killing of unarmed black men and women, we have seen renewed calls for racial justice and systemic police reform. According to the National Conference on State Legislatures, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have introduced legislation to reform some aspect of policing. Common reforms have included addressing issues around accountability and oversight, limiting the use of neck restraints and no-knock warrants, instituting use of force standards, requiring a duty to intervene, mandating data collection around police interactions, requiring increased use of police body cameras and more. But are these reforms enough? And how can we limit police interactions? Police retain enormous discretion in determining where to patrol, who to stop, and who to arrest for minor offenses like loitering, jaywalking, littering,disorderly conduct, and disturbing the peace. Criminalizing minor offenses needlessly exposes individuals to police interaction, which can often function as a gateway to police violence.

Kami Chavis, Professor of Law and Director of the Criminal Justice Program, Wake Forest University School of Law

Walter Katz, Vice President of Criminal Justice, Arnold Ventures

DeRay Mckesson, Co-Founder, Campaign Zero

Moderated by: Paige Fernandez, Policing Policy Advisor, National Political Advocacy Department, ACLU

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Policing in America: Policing the Police

Policing in America: Policing the Police
19th Annual State Criminal Justice Network Conference
August 17-19, 2020 | Held Virtually

Moderator: Norman Reimer, Executive Director, NACDL

Panelists:
Julie Ciccolini, Research Technologist, Digital Investigations Lab, Human Rights Watch
Rebecca Brown, Policy Director, Innocence Project

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