Senate Must Go Boldly on Transformative Policing Reform

Justice Reform News, Policing Resources 06.24.20

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Shin Inouye, [email protected], 202.869.0398

WASHINGTON – Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued the following statement after the Senate rejected efforts to advance the Republican policing “reform” legislation, the JUSTICE Act: 

“The JUSTICE Act was clearly misnamed – it lacks the transformative changes needed to address the crisis in policing. Leader McConnell and the Republican majority must heed calls to advance meaningful solutions that end state-sanctioned violence against Black and Brown people and provide lasting accountability. Lip service and piecemeal approaches are a nonstarter. Congress must go boldly and build an America where all of us are truly free and safe. This is not a partisan issue. Every member should agree that Black Lives Matter.”

BACKGROUND

The Leadership Conference and more than 135 groups urged the Senate to oppose the JUSTICE Act and to vote no on the motion to proceed. Previously, more than 450 civil rights organizations called on Congressional leadership to swiftly rectify the legacy of white supremacy and anti-Black racism that has led to police violence against Black people across our country.

The Leadership Conference, along with its sister organization, The Leadership Conference Education Fund, previously launched the New Era of Public Safety initiative, featuring tools to increase trust, fairness, justice, and mutual respect between police departments and the communities they serve. In 2019, the organization launched the Vision for Justice platform that calls for a holistic reimagining of public safety and outlines how we create healthy, inclusive, and safe communities. That platform calls on us to adopt a transformative vision for how we evaluate and determine public safety priorities, while also ending mass incarceration and criminalization.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 220 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.