Federal law now requires police to report every deadly force incident—with race, age, religion data.
H.R. 1240 — National Statistics on Deadly Force Transparency Act of 2025 · Filed by Steve Cohen (D-TN) · Introduced Feb 12, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires the Attorney General to create federal rules within 6 months for collecting standardized data on every instance of deadly force used by police officers at all levels of government. The data must include details about the person killed or injured, the officer involved, the circumstances, and the agency's justification—with demographic information (race, gender, age, religion) included to enable analysis of disparities. The data goes to the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, which publishes it publicly (without releasing officers' or victims' names), and states that fail to report lose 10% of federal law-enforcement grants.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a federal data-collection and publication requirement designed to create systematic transparency around police use of deadly force. It is a public-accountability measure, not a regulatory carve-out, subsidy, or commemorative provision.
What the text implies
- Demographic data collection (race, ethnicity, religion) may enable statistical analysis of disparities in police use of deadly force, potentially exposing systemic patterns that could drive policy or litigation.
- The 10% Byrne JAG grant penalty creates financial leverage to enforce compliance; states with tight budgets may face pressure to improve reporting infrastructure or face federal funding cuts.
- Public release of aggregated data (without names) may shift public discourse and media coverage toward data-driven accountability, potentially affecting police hiring, training, and policy at local levels.
- The 4-year data retention requirement creates a longitudinal record that researchers and advocates can use to track trends over time and across jurisdictions.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens and civil-rights organizations gain systematic, public data on police use of deadly force—enabling accountability, research, and informed advocacy—while personally identifiable information is protected. The reporting burden and grant penalty on law enforcement agencies is a cost to those agencies, not to ordinary people; it is a mechanism to enforce transparency in the public interest.
Named in the bill
Attorney General, Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Federal law enforcement agencies, State law enforcement agencies, Local law enforcement agencies, Byrne JAG grant program, Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968
Where it stands
- Feb 12, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Feb 12, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (3,997 characters) on Apr 14, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Federal law now requires police to report every deadly force incident—with race, age, religion data.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr1240 Report an error
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