Policing

Policing policy covers how law enforcement agencies are funded, trained, overseen, and held accountable — and how they interact with the communities they serve. The killing of George Floyd in May 2020 triggered the largest civil rights protests in American history and renewed national debate over police use of force, racial disparities in policing, the practice of qualified immunity (which shields officers from civil liability), and whether police budgets should be redirected to social services. Congress came close to passing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in 2021, which would have banned chokeholds, restricted no-knock warrants at the federal level, created a national misconduct registry, and ended qualified immunity for police officers — but the bill ultimately stalled in the Senate. Federal oversight of local policing is limited by constitutional principles of federalism; most police reform has happened at the state and local level. Data on police use of force is fragmented because reporting is voluntary and inconsistent — the federal government still does not have a complete, reliable national database of police-involved deaths. Approximately 1,000 to 1,200 people are killed by police annually in the U.S., with Black Americans killed at roughly twice the rate of white Americans per capita. Simultaneously, rising violent crime rates in some cities during 2020–2022 fueled counter-arguments for increased police funding and stronger law enforcement. Debates about mental health crisis response — dispatching social workers instead of armed officers to certain calls — are reshaping how cities approach public safety.