WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice has shut down the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database, a federal misconduct tracking system that was intended to prevent officers with disciplinary records from being rehired by other agencies, the Washington Post reported.
The database, created in 2022 under an executive order by former President Joe Biden, tracked misconduct among nearly 150,000 federal law enforcement officers and agents, according to the report. It was operational for just over a year, with all 90 executive branch agencies contributing disciplinary records dating back to 2017.
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Trump’s order revoking Biden’s police reform measures was part of broader efforts to reduce the federal government’s size and costs, according to the report. The White House and the Justice Department did not provide specific reasons for deleting the database.
Law enforcement accountability advocates criticized the decision, arguing that the database addressed the issue of “wandering officers” who move between agencies despite prior misconduct, according to the report. Some policing organizations had raised concerns about officers not being given due process to challenge their inclusion in the database.
The shutdown does not affect the National Decertification Index, a separate registry of state and local officers who have lost certification due to misconduct.
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