Senate Passes Hoylman's Police STAT Act, Requiring Public Reporting Of Deaths In Police Custody And Racial Disparities In Law Enforcement Practices

NEW YORK—Today, the New York State Senate voted to pass the Police Statistics and Transparency Act (S.1830-C/A.10609). The legislation would require New York State to capture and report the race, ethnicity and sex of anyone arrested and charged with a misdemeanor or violation, as well as of anyone who dies while in police custody or an attempt to establish custody. The Police STAT Act passed the New York State Assembly earlier today, sponsored by Assembly Member Joe Lentol.

Senator Hoylman said: “The Police Statistics and Transparency (STAT) Act (S1830C), a recommendation of President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, requires law enforcement to collect and publicly report demographic information ranging from low-level arrests to in-custody deaths. Because of this legislation, we’ll finally have the data necessary to identify and root out the systematic and discriminatory policing practices that law enforcement uses to target Black and Brown New Yorkers. I’m thankful for the leadership of Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Senate Codes Committee Chair Jamaal Bailey, and Assembly sponsor Joe Lentol for helping me usher this bill to passage, along with the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic & Asian Legislative Caucus. I’m honored to have had the support of Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who travelled to Albany to personally campaign for passage of the Police STAT Act. We pass this bill today in honor of the memory of Ms. Carr’s son.”

The Police STAT Act (S.1830-C/A.10609) creates new reporting requirements to shine a light on policing practices in New York. The legislation would require the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services to capture and publicly report on the race, ethnicity and sex of individuals who die in an arrest-related death, and require New York’s Office of Court Administration to publicly report the same demographic data for those charged with misdemeanors or violations.

New York would be required to collect and report a broad range of data on policing, including:

• The total number of people who die during an interaction with police or in police custody
• The race, ethnicity, age and sex of anyone who dies during an interaction with police or in police custody
• The location of law enforcement activity and arrest-related deaths
• The total number of arrests and tickets for violations and misdemeanors
• The race, ethnicity, age and sex of anyone charged with a violation or misdemeanor

Data would be collected and published monthly on the public websites of the Division of Criminal Justice Services and Office of Court Administration. The Police STAT Act also includes safeguards to ensure personal identifying information, such as an individual’s name, date of birth or Social Security number, is not released.

In 2015, the White House released the findings of President Obama’s Task Force On 21st Century Policing, which identified data collection as a crucial tool in criminal justice reform. In 2017, Gwen Carr visited the New York State Capitol to advocate for the Police STAT Act, noting that “without transparency there’s no way we can begin to fix the problem of police brutality and misconduct.”