海角换妻 has taken steps since the late 1990s to monitor and, ultimately, encourage changes in police practices across the state.
But following the murders of George Floyd and others at the hands of police across the country, the state鈥檚 ongoing efforts to address police officers鈥� excessive use of force and racial and ethnic disparities in policing have come into greater focus.
The state has launched several initiatives in recent years to increase police accountability, including tracking use-of-force statistics, equipping officers with body cameras and analyzing racial profiling in traffic stops.
How effective have these efforts been? Here鈥檚 what you need to know.
Tracking excessive use-of-force
How does it work? Since 2019, 海角换妻 has about how often police officers in the state are tackling, tasing, restraining and aiming weapons at members of the public to gain a better understanding of current law enforcement practices.
State officials have required police departments throughout 海角换妻 to report use-of-force statistics over the past two years, and the data were .
What are the report鈥檚 limitations? The first analysis provides some insights, but officials warned about drawing conclusions because of a lack of standards in data collection and incomplete participation among police departments.
A new law that went into effect July 1 of this year established a uniform report that all departments must submit in the coming years.
What did the first report find? The collected data from nearly 1,300 use-of-force reports submitted by 60 police departments across the state for incidents in 2019 and 2020.
Overall, officers used force at a rate of just over 1% of all arrests. There were 11 people shot and killed by police in 2019 and 2020.
People involved in a confrontation with police that led to use of force were more likely to be unarmed, Black, male, under 40 years old and not under the influence of alcohol or drugs, according to the report.
Mandating body cams
Does 海角换妻 require body cams? Yes. Following a wave of protests in 2020, the legislature passed a sweeping police accountability bill that included a with body cameras by July 2022.
Didn鈥檛 the state鈥檚 effort on body cams start prior to 2020? In 2015, state lawmakers voted to create a new grant program to help fund the purchase of body cameras for state troopers, campus police and local departments throughout the state.
The state initially promised to refund local departments 100% of the cost of the camera purchases. Even so, many departments were slow to apply for the grants.
Some police chiefs in the state voiced concerns about the recurring expenses their departments would face to digitally store thousands of hours of footage. The state didn鈥檛 offer to help the departments cover the ongoing costs of maintaining those systems.
Do all police now have body cameras? Unclear. Though all officers are currently required to be equipped with body cameras, no state agency is tracking whether police departments had purchased them by the July 2022 deadline.
Curbing racial profiling in police stops
Haven鈥檛 CT lawmakers been working on this issue for a long time? 海角换妻 officials have worked to halt racial profiling in police stops since passing a 1999 law to address the issue.
But three decades later, state lawmakers continue to grapple with traffic stops.
In the state鈥檚 most recent police accountability legislation 鈥� passed in 2020 鈥� 海角换妻 ended 鈥渃onsent searches,鈥� in which an officer pulls a driver over and asks for the motorist鈥檚 consent to search the vehicle.
How is the state holding local police departments accountable? The General Assembly created the in 2012. Its mission is to identify and address racial and ethnic disparities in traffic enforcement.
Since 2013, project staffers have examined 3.5 million traffic stops by the state鈥檚 107 law enforcement agencies, which are required to send traffic stop data to the state each month.
From the data, the project team is able to analyze which communities were more likely to show racial and ethnic disparities in traffic stops.
Is the project working? The results are promising. The research has helped reduce racial disparities in several communities while improving police effectiveness.
That has been accomplished by encouraging police to focus almost entirely on roadway safety and not use traffic stops as a pretext to address other issues 鈥� like asking to search the car for drugs, weapons or other contraband.
