Van Hollen, Blumenthal, Senators Demand Full Implementation & Enforcement of the Death in Custody Reporting Act

U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), along with 15 senators, wrote Attorney General William Barr calling for the immediate, full implementation and enforcement of the Death in Custody Reporting Act.

“One stark, staggering fact is that there exists no reliable metric on the number of law enforcement-related deaths that occur each year because DOJ has failed to implement and enforce the DCRA,” the senators wrote. “To be clear, the DCRA will not alone solve the underlying problem. We acknowledge that the data collected pursuant to the DCRA is neither the justice, nor the accountability that the problem demands, but it is a critical step in that direction. That data can—and will—inform the substantive and structural reforms that we must make in the weeks and months ahead. To that end, we demand that you begin the immediate implementation and enforcement of the DCRA.” 

Today’s letter was signed by U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Kamala D. Harris (D-CA), Cory A. Booker (D-NJ), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).

The full text of the senators’ letter is copied below.

Dear Attorney General Barr:

We write to request that the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) take immediate action to implement and enforce the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013 (“DCRA”).[1] It has been six years since Congress passed, with bipartisan support, the DCRA and, in those six years, DOJ has not taken meaningful steps toward full implementation or enforcement.[2] That is simply unacceptable. 

The DCRA was passed in 2014, following the tragic law enforcement-related deaths of two Black men—Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York City, New York. In passing the DCRA, Congress had a singular purpose—that state and federal law enforcement agencies must report to the Attorney General when a person dies in their custody. That data, in turn, would help us, as policymakers, and the Attorney General, as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, make critical decisions to reduce the number of these preventable deaths. To encourage states to report these deaths, Congress gave the Attorney General an enforcement mechanism—the authority to withhold up to 10-percent of the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program funds from states that failed to comply with the DCRA reporting requirement.

The moment in which we find ourselves today—having witnessed the recent law enforcement-related deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks—is not unlike the moment in which the DCRA was passed. But that is because the moment is one and the same. The deaths of Black and Brown men and women at the hands of law enforcement did not stop with Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Countless others have died since, which is to say nothing of those whose lives were taken before. It is precisely because of these repeated moments in history we need the DCRA now more than ever. 

One stark, staggering fact is that there exists no reliable metric on the number of law enforcement-related deaths that occur each year because DOJ has failed to implement and enforce the DCRA. To be clear, the DCRA will not alone solve the underlying problem. We acknowledge that the data collected pursuant to the DCRA is neither the justice, nor the accountability that the problem demands, but it is a critical step in that direction. That data can—and will—inform the substantive and structural reforms that we must make in the weeks and months ahead. To that end, we demand that you begin the immediate implementation and enforcement of the DCRA.

Thank you for your timely attention to this matter.