State Rep. Juandalynn Givan (D-Birmingham) recently filed legislation requiring the attorney general to create, maintain and publish a police abuse registry of people convicted of using or threatening to use force against a law enforcement officer.
House Bill 415 (HB415), also known as the Back the Blue Act, would create the Police Abuse Registry, which is maintained by the state attorney general. The purpose of the registry is to publish the names and related information of individuals convicted of offenses against law enforcement officers.
"It's become too frequent an occurrence for law enforcement officers in Alabama to be assaulted or threatened with violence in the performance of their duties," Givan said. "In many cases, individuals have a history of attacking or threatening officers. It's past time for officers to have advanced knowledge of who to look out for."
She continued, "I'm also requiring the attorney general to notify a law enforcement agency each time a person in their jurisdiction is added to the registry. Once added to the registry, it's going to be difficult but not impossible for a person to get their name off the list."
The list will contain the names, birth dates and registered offenses of those who have threatened or committed an act of force against a law enforcement officer.
The AG would also create a removal process, which someone could use to have their name removed from the list. The requirements for removal would require a person to pay $5,000 for each offense before their name could be removed from the registry. Those payments would then go into the Law Enforcement Injury Fund, created by HB415.
"Some people might think $5,000 is a steep price to impose on a person to clear their name from the registry, but when it comes to harming a law enforcement officer, the price needs to be steep," Givan added.
Law enforcement agencies would have sole access to the list for the purposes of background checks, investigations related to police safety and monitoring of residents in that agency's jurisdiction.
On a Tuesday appearance on IHeart Radio's "Alabama's Morning News with JT," Givan called the bill a "no-brainer," citing continued issues with police recruitment and morale, especially in her district of Birmingham.
"This bill, to me, is a no-brainer," Givan told the host. "We must do more to protect our law enforcement officers across the country. There is a shortage of police officers. But incidents occur, assaults, attacks on our officers every single day, and a lot of those assaults and those attacks they go unreported. In many instances, those, for some reason, are able to get away with it to a great extent for different reasons."
She continued, "It also enhances the ability to do more recruiting. Listen, our law enforcement officers are fed up throughout the country. They're overworked, they're underpaid, they're doing some of the jobs that they are doing, within their work, they probably shouldn't even be on certain types of calls. So, all of those things coupled together, I think, makes for a good bill."
The bill is scheduled to be heard by the House Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by retired judge State Rep. Jim Hill (R-Moody).
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