Removing Barriers to Holding Officers Accountable

The Problem

Many current state laws and police union contracts that purport to give police protections during investigations in fact prevent the public from finding the truth during an investigation. These provisions can block accountability for officers who have committed misconduct. For example, many law enforcement officer “bill of rights” laws and police union contracts prevent police supervisors from questioning officers accused of misconduct for days or even weeks. This practice creates a range of harms to an investigation, like evidence loss, memory lapses, and coordination of exculpatory accounts. There are many other examples of problematic provisions in police “bills of rights” or police union contracts. 

The Solution

The statute eliminates common accountability-impeding provisions from state and local law, and prohibits local governments from including them in police union contracts. It also improves accountability by requiring agencies to publish their discipline guidelines or matrices and their police union contracts, and to adopt, follow, and publish complaint policies. 

To read the Policing Project’s Act to Remove Barriers to Accountability and Facilitate Robust Oversight, click here.

To read a section-by-section summary of our model statute, click here.

To read Frequently Asked Questions about our model statute, click here.

To read a checklist of common red flags in police collective bargaining agreements, click here.

For an explainer on the issue of barriers to accountability, click here.