Police reform in the United States has moved further at the state and local level since 2020 than at any point in modern history, while the federal government has reversed much of what it put in place during the same period. Forty-five states have enacted reform-oriented policing laws, most large departments have rewritten their use-of-force rules, and more than 150 cities now send mental health workers instead of officers to some 911 calls. At the same time, the Trump administration has revoked the Biden-era federal policing executive order, dismissed federal consent decrees against troubled departments, and shut down the national misconduct database. The result in mid-2026 is a patchwork: real change in some states and cities, little or none in others, and no federal floor beneath any of it.
Why Reform Is Still Being Pushed
The numbers behind the push have barely moved. Police killed 1,314 people in the United States in 2025, an average of 3.6 per day. That was the first year-over-year decline in six years.1Campaign Zero. For the First Time in Six Years, Police Violence Declined in 2025 Of those killed, 98 were unarmed, 116 died during mental health or welfare checks, and 112 were killed following traffic stops. Officers were charged with a crime in eight of those cases.2Police Violence Report. 2025 Police Violence Report
Racial disparities remain sharp. Black people are roughly 2.6 to 2.8 times more likely than white people to be killed by police, and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander individuals face the highest disparity at 5.5 times more likely.1Campaign Zero. For the First Time in Six Years, Police Violence Declined in 2025 Bureau of Justice Statistics data from 2022 show Black drivers were searched or arrested during traffic stops at more than twice the rate of white drivers, and were over three times as likely to experience a threat or use of force during a police encounter.3Prison Policy Initiative. Policing Survey 2022
What States Have Actually Passed
Between May 2020 and May 2022, more than 4,500 police-related bills were introduced in state legislatures.4National Conference of State Legislatures. Law Enforcement Legislation: Significant Trends A 2025 study published in Social Sciences found that 48 states enacted at least one new police accountability policy between May 2020 and December 2022.5Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. State-Level Analysis on U.S. Police Accountability
The reforms clustered in a handful of areas. At least 39 states and the District of Columbia enacted 95 laws covering crisis intervention, mental health, de-escalation, and bias training. At least 30 states and D.C. expanded the grounds on which an officer can be decertified and lose the license to work in law enforcement. At least 25 states limited neck restraints, and 20 states addressed statewide use-of-force standards; nine of those — Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington — significantly expanded their statutory standards. At least 23 states and D.C. created a legal duty for officers to intervene when a colleague uses excessive force. Fourteen states passed laws regulating or restricting no-knock warrants. Six states — Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, and New Mexico — mandated statewide adoption of body-worn cameras.4National Conference of State Legislatures. Law Enforcement Legislation: Significant Trends
Performance varied enormously. Colorado enacted nearly 80% of its proposed policing bills; New York enacted less than 3%.6Brookings Institution. The State of Police Reform: Measuring Progress in Each State Colorado’s Senate Bill 217, the Enhance Law Enforcement Integrity Act, signed on June 19, 2020, became one of the most comprehensive packages in the country. It allows individuals to sue officers in their personal capacities for up to $25,000, bans chokeholds and carotid holds, restricts deadly force to imminent-threat situations, mandates body-worn cameras, requires a duty to intervene with decertification as the penalty for failure, and empowers the state attorney general to investigate agencies for systemic civil rights abuses.7Colorado Sun. Colorado Police Accountability Bill Becomes Law A 2021 follow-up appropriated $2 million for a body camera grant program and added whistleblower protections for officers who report misconduct.8Colorado General Assembly. HB21-1250
How Department Use-of-Force Rules Have Changed
Individual departments have rewritten their operating policies at a pace that would have been hard to imagine a decade ago. A June 2025 Stanford Center for Racial Justice study analyzed use-of-force regulations across America’s 100 largest cities and documented sweeping shifts compared to a 2015–2016 baseline. Chokehold prohibitions increased from 22% of departments to 92%. Duty-to-intervene requirements rose from 29% to 93%. Forty-eight percent of departments now use a “necessary” standard for force, exceeding the constitutional minimum of “objectively reasonable” the Supreme Court established in Graham v. Connor (1989). Seventy-nine percent require officers to attempt de-escalation before using force, and 54% designate deadly force as a last resort.9Stanford Law School. Police Use of Force Policies Across America
Gaps remain. Only 41% of departments restrict the use of pepper spray against handcuffed individuals, and because American policing is decentralized across roughly 18,000 agencies, policy quality varies dramatically from one jurisdiction to the next.
Qualified Immunity: Where It Was Limited, Where It Wasn’t
Qualified immunity, a doctrine the Supreme Court created to shield government officials from civil lawsuits unless they violated a “clearly established” constitutional right, has been one of the most contested fights in the reform debate. Critics argue the standard effectively requires finding a prior case with nearly identical facts, which makes compensation for police misconduct victims extremely difficult to obtain.10Institute for Justice. Qualified Immunity State Reforms
Federal proposals to abolish or limit the doctrine have repeatedly stalled in Congress. Four states — Colorado, Montana, Nevada, and New Mexico — have completely barred police officers from invoking qualified immunity as a defense in state court. New York City passed a local law creating a cause of action against officers for state constitutional violations and explicitly prohibiting the qualified immunity defense.11State Court Report. Legislative Efforts to Abolish Qualified Immunity Yield Mixed Results
Other states did less. Connecticut created a civil action for state constitutional violations but preserved a defense for officers who held an “objectively good faith belief” that their conduct was lawful. Massachusetts precluded qualified immunity only in actions resulting in an officer’s decertification. California abrogated only three specific statutory immunities. Iowa went the other way and broadened its qualified immunity defense in 2021.
Federal Action, Then Reversal
In May 2022, President Biden signed Executive Order 14074, which restricted federal law enforcement’s use of chokeholds and no-knock entries, mandated body cameras for federal officers, limited the transfer of military equipment to local police, and directed the Department of Justice to create a national misconduct database.12Brennan Center for Justice. Trump Reverses Biden Directive on Policing Reforms The resulting National Law Enforcement Accountability Database launched on December 18, 2023, and produced one published report before being shut down.13Bureau of Justice Statistics. National Law Enforcement Accountability Database
The Biden DOJ also opened pattern-or-practice investigations into departments in Minneapolis, Louisville, Phoenix, Memphis, and other jurisdictions, finding constitutional violations in several. Those investigations are the federal government’s primary tool for imposing structural reform on troubled departments, typically producing court-supervised consent decrees that mandate changes to training, supervision, use of force, and accountability.
On his first day in office in January 2025, President Trump revoked Executive Order 14074, eliminating the federal restrictions on chokeholds, no-knock entries, body cameras, and military equipment transfers.12Brennan Center for Justice. Trump Reverses Biden Directive on Policing Reforms In May 2025, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division dismissed the pattern-or-practice lawsuits against Minneapolis and Louisville, retracted its findings of constitutional violations, and closed investigations into Phoenix, Trenton, Memphis, Mount Vernon, Oklahoma City, and Louisiana State Police.14U.S. Department of Justice. Civil Rights Division Dismisses Biden-Era Police Investigations
An April 2025 executive order, “Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement,” directed the attorney general to review all ongoing consent decrees and move to conclude any that “unduly impede the performance of law enforcement functions” within 60 days.15The White House. Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement The same order told the Defense Department to increase the transfer of surplus military equipment to local police. The Defense Logistics Agency notified participating states in February 2025 that all equipment prohibitions and certification requirements from the Biden era had been terminated.16U.S. Congress. H.R. 7766 – Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act
How Cities and State AGs Are Filling the Gap
Several cities whose federal consent decrees were dismissed have pledged to continue reforms on their own, without the enforcement power of a federal judge behind them. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey signed Executive Order 2025-01 in June 2025, directing city employees to implement the reforms outlined in the dismissed federal decree. The city also remains bound by a separate state-level agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.17City of Minneapolis. Consent Decree Louisville pledged to implement DOJ-proposed reforms voluntarily and hire an independent police monitor. Community members there, including Breonna Taylor’s mother Tamika Palmer, have expressed skepticism about the city’s commitment without federal oversight.18The Marshall Project. Trump Police – New York Minneapolis Phoenix’s mayor, by contrast, called the federal withdrawal “complete vindication,” and Louisiana state officials rejected the DOJ’s findings regarding the Louisiana State Police outright.
State attorneys general have emerged as an alternative enforcement route. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan used state authority under the Illinois Human Rights Act to secure a consent decree for the Chicago Police Department after the first Trump administration abandoned the federal effort.19Center for American Progress. Expanding Authority of State Attorneys General to Combat Police Misconduct New York’s Law Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Office, created in 2020, has authority to investigate systemic issues across more than 500 local agencies; in 2025 alone it completed 102 referral investigations and made 28 findings of a pattern or practice of misconduct.20New York State Attorney General. LEMIO 2025 Annual Report New Jersey reported record-high police disciplinary actions in 2025, with 654 officers from 169 agencies disciplined for 817 offenses.21New Jersey Monitor. NJ Police Discipline Misconduct
Civilian Oversight Boards
More than 160 jurisdictions in the United States now have civilian oversight entities for police, and 79% of agencies in the Major Cities Chiefs Association have some form of civilian oversight or review function.22Council on Criminal Justice. Assessing the Evidence: Civilian Oversight Roughly 78% of those bodies were created in response to local crises involving allegations of excessive force or racially biased policing. After George Floyd’s murder, Columbus established a new review board, Oakland expanded the powers of its Police Commission, and Portland and Philadelphia created new oversight bodies with subpoena power.
The limits are structural. Among the 50 largest police agencies, only six civilian oversight boards have any disciplinary power; most function in an advisory role. While 78% of oversight agencies report that police executives listen to their recommendations, less than half believe those recommendations are frequently implemented. Barriers include a lack of subpoena power, restricted access to departmental records, and interference from police union contracts.
Police Unions as a Brake on Discipline
Approximately 75% of U.S. police officers are unionized. A study of union contracts covering nearly half of all officers in collective bargaining states found that roughly 90% of those contracts contain at least one provision that can obstruct legitimate disciplinary action.23Harvard Law School. Police Collective Bargaining and Police Violence Common provisions include mandatory delays before officers under investigation can be interviewed (48 hours in Chicago, for example), clauses allowing the erasure of disciplinary records after a set period, and binding arbitration that frequently overturns terminations. The Washington Post has reported that hundreds of officers fired from major metropolitan departments have been reinstated through union appeals, often despite undisputed misconduct.24Annual Reviews. Police Unions
Some states have begun chipping away at these protections. Colorado’s 2022 collective bargaining law prohibits contract provisions that delay officer interviews, allow paid leave for constitutional violations, or expunge disciplinary records. Washington, D.C. removed disciplinary matters from the scope of union contract negotiations. Connecticut and Vermont prohibited agreements that restrict disclosure of personnel and disciplinary records. Oregon barred arbitrators from overturning discipline when misconduct is found and the punishment aligns with department guidelines.25Manhattan Institute. Enhancing Accountability: Collective Bargaining and Police Reform
What Taxpayers Pay for Misconduct
Payouts to settle officer misconduct claims in the 20 largest U.S. cities totaled $2 billion between 2015 and 2021.25Manhattan Institute. Enhancing Accountability: Collective Bargaining and Police Reform The pace has not slowed. New York City paid more than $200 million in misconduct settlements in 2024 and over $117 million in 2025, resolving more than 1,000 lawsuits in that year alone. From 2019 through 2025, the city spent over $796 million on such claims.26The Guardian. NYPD Police Misconduct NYC Taxpayers Chicago set aside $82 million for misconduct settlements in 2025 and was on track to exhaust that budget by mid-year; a Cook County jury awarded $79.85 million in a single police pursuit case in December 2024.27WTTW News. Chicago Set to Exhaust Annual Budget for Police Misconduct Settlements
Alternative Response to Mental Health Calls
One of the fastest-growing areas of reform sends mental health professionals, social workers, or paramedics, instead of or alongside armed officers, to 911 calls involving behavioral health crises. Up to 20% of 911 calls are estimated to involve acute mental or behavioral health issues.28Arnold Ventures. Alternative Crisis Response A 2026 survey identified more than 150 such programs nationwide, and 44 of the 50 largest U.S. cities have implemented some form of alternative response involving non-police personnel.29Human Rights Watch. Alternative Mental Health Crisis Response
Early results are encouraging. Denver’s STAR program, which pairs a mental health clinician with a paramedic, showed a 34% drop in low-level crime in neighborhoods where the team operated. Programs in Eugene, Oregon (CAHOOTS), Albuquerque, and Denver report that unarmed responders need police backup on roughly 1% of calls or fewer.30The Marshall Project. Police Mental Health Alternative 911
Sustainability is the central problem. Many programs were initially funded through American Rescue Plan dollars that are now expiring. New York City halted expansion plans for its mobile crisis team due to budget cuts. Staffing shortages and burnout affect even established programs; Eugene’s CAHOOTS has struggled with understaffing for at least three years. The Trump administration’s 2025 executive actions, including one seeking to expand involuntary civil commitment and a proposed restructuring of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, pose additional risks to the federal infrastructure supporting non-police crisis models.
What “Defund the Police” Actually Produced
The slogan became the most politically charged element of the post-2020 movement, but the actual budget picture was far smaller than the rhetoric. An ABC analysis of 109 city and county budgets between 2019 and 2022 found that 91 agencies increased law enforcement funding by at least 2%, while only eight cut funding by more than 2%.31ABC7. Where Police Departments Were Defunded
At least 16 cities pledged to reduce their police budgets by June 2021, but most cuts were temporary and achieved through hiring freezes, overtime reductions, or the removal of school resource officers.32National Institutes of Health. Defunding and Refunding the Police Nearly all of those cities subsequently restored or increased spending. Austin cut its police budget by roughly 35% and then increased it 50% the following year after Texas passed a state law barring cities from decreasing police budgets. Minneapolis restored funding to pre-Floyd levels. New York City’s touted “$1 billion cut” translated into an actual spending increase of $200 million. Some cities used federal COVID-19 relief funds to boost police spending further.
Training Gaps the Reforms Haven’t Closed
American police training has long been shorter and more tactically oriented than in peer nations. According to a 2022 Bureau of Justice Statistics census, the average basic training program lasts 806 hours, less than 22 weeks. By comparison, police training runs 15 to 21 months in Japan, two and a half years in Germany, and three years in Finland.33ABC News. Police Training in the U.S. Falls Short Compared to the Rest of the World There are no national standards.
Curriculum remains weighted toward weapons and defensive tactics, which account for 21% of training hours; community policing receives 6%. De-escalation instruction averages 22 hours, and mental health training averages 21 hours. One shift stands out: training on neck restraints such as carotid holds declined from 46% of recruits in 2018 to 22% in 2022, reflecting the wave of chokehold bans.34Bureau of Justice Statistics. State and Local Law Enforcement Training Academies, 2022 Evidence-based training can move the numbers. A University of Cincinnati study of Integrated Communications, Assessment and Tactics training in Louisville found a 28% reduction in use-of-force incidents, 36% fewer injuries to officers, and 26% fewer injuries to civilians among trained officers.
Federal Legislation Still Stalled
The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, first introduced in 2020, passed the House twice but never advanced in the Senate. Congressman Glenn Ivey reintroduced it on September 15, 2025, as H.R. 5361 in the 119th Congress with 122 cosponsors.35Congressman Glenn Ivey. Re-Introduction of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act The bill would lower the federal criminal standard for prosecuting officers from “willfulness” to “recklessness,” reform qualified immunity, establish a National Police Misconduct Registry, ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants in drug cases, change the legal standard for use of force from “reasonable” to “necessary,” and grant the DOJ Civil Rights Division subpoena power for pattern-or-practice investigations. As of mid-2026, the bill has not advanced out of committee.36U.S. Congress. H.R. 5361 – George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2025
Public Opinion
Public confidence in police has rebounded since hitting a record low of 43% in 2023 but remains below pre-2020 levels. A 2024 Gallup poll found 51% of Americans expressing confidence in the police, up eight points in a single year, the largest gain among the 17 institutions tracked.37Gallup. Confidence in Institutions Mostly Flat; Police Up By May 2025, 74% of Americans expressed confidence in their local police specifically.38Lexipol. Public Attitudes Toward Police Are Improving Confidence among Black Americans has risen from 59% in 2021 to 64% in 2024, though it still lags the 77% rate for white Americans.
A Pew Research Center survey from May 2025 found that 72% of Americans believe the increased focus on racial inequality following George Floyd’s murder did not lead to changes that improved the lives of Black people, and 54% say the relationship between Black people and the police remains about the same as before his death.39Pew Research Center. Police Broad support for specific reform measures, including the right to sue officers, body cameras, and use-of-force limits, has coexisted with little public appetite for cutting police spending.
Where Things Stand
In mid-2026, the picture is defined by two trends pulling in opposite directions. Forty-five states have passed reform-oriented laws, chokehold bans and duty-to-intervene requirements are now standard in major departments, and more than 150 alternative crisis response programs are operating across the country. At the same time, the federal misconduct database has been shut down, pattern-or-practice investigations have been closed, military equipment restrictions have been lifted, and the most comprehensive federal reform bill remains stalled in Congress. The rate of officers charged after fatal encounters has nearly doubled since 2020 but still accounts for less than 1% of all police killings.2Police Violence Report. 2025 Police Violence Report Whether state and local reforms can hold and deepen without federal support, and in some cases against active federal opposition, is the open question the next few years will answer.