Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH) said he has introduced H.R. 7384, the Safer Communities Act, that would make communities safer by highlighting functional reforms, rewarding officers making a positive impact, and addressing power abuses.
“Instead of getting bogged down in partisan arguments on issues where we disagree, I think Congress should focus on the areas to improve policing on which there is broad agreement,” Chabot said regarding the Safer Communities Act. “I think it’s particularly important that we use the Cincinnati Collaborative Agreement as a model for other parts of the country. The Agreement has been tested and proven to be an effective tool to bring everyone together at the same table to build a positive, constructive relationship between the police and the communities they serve.”
The bill requires the Government Accountability Office to complete a study of Cincinnati’s Collaborative Agreement to determine what went right, what could be improved, and how the Agreement can serve as a model for other communities throughout the country. It also encourages officers who retire in good standing to continue to serve the neighborhoods they dedicated their lives to protecting, by expanding the Public Safety Officers’ Benefit Program to provide benefits to retired officers, who are seriously injured or killed in a public or private security capacity; and make it more difficult for officers fired for disciplinary reasons to find employment as a police officer in other communities, by requiring local police departments retain disciplinary records and make those records available to other local governments upon request.