Crime and Criminal Justice Reform

Fighting Crime and Seeking Justice

Policing

As a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee and it’s Crime Subcommittee, Congressman Cohen is working to ensure our criminal justice system is fair and designed to promote public safety. He has introduced several bills to improve police practices, including the Police Training and Independent Review Act, which creates an incentive for states to require independent investigation and prosecution of incidents in which police use of deadly force results in a death or injury. It also requires sensitivity training on ethnic and racial bias, cultural diversity, and interactions with the disabled, mentally ill, and new immigrants. The bill is supported by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). 

Congressman Cohen has also introduced the National Statistics on Deadly Force Transparency Act to require states — as a condition of receipt of full Byrne Justice Assistance Grant funding — to collect data in all instances in which deadly force was used and report it to the Department of Justice, as well as the Police Creating Accountability in Making Effective Recording Available (CAMERA) Act to establish a grant program to assist state and local law enforcement with the purchase of body cameras to be worn by police officers.  

All three of these bills were included in the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which was approved by the full House in 2021. 

Congressman Cohen introduced the End Racial and Religious Profiling Act to prohibit law enforcement from profiling Americans based on race and other protected characteristics, grant victims of profiling the right to file suit, authorize grants to collect data relating to racial profiling, and require state and local law enforcement to certify that they have eliminated any practices that permit or encourage racial profiling.  This is especially important as we confront the blatant profiling during the Trump Administration’s law enforcement surges, like the one happening right now in Memphis.

Reentry

Congressman Cohen is also working to help ex-offenders to reenter and become productive members of society. He introduced the Fresh Start Act to give nonviolent ex-offenders a chance to start over again. It allows ex-offenders to apply for expungement to the court where they were sentenced and allows the United States Attorney for that District to submit recommendations to the court. States that pass a substantially similar law would receive a 5 percent increase in their Byrne funding while those that do not would lose 5 percent of their Byrne funds. Congressman Cohen has also cosponsored the Second Chance Reauthorization Act. This bill reauthorizes funding for programs to help inmates become productive and law abiding citizens after they are released. Programs include education, housing, job training, drug treatment and medical care. 

The Congressman has also cosponsored the Fair Chance Act. This "ban the box" bill prohibits federal agencies and contractors from requesting that applicants for employment disclose certain criminal activity in their history records before receiving a conditional offer. 

Reducing Gun Violence

Congressman Cohen helped pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — the first major federal gun safety bill passed in nearly 30 years.  That bill makes various changes to federal firearms laws, including to expand background check requirements for persons who are under 21 years of age, to establish new criminal offenses for straw purchasing of firearms and trafficking in firearms, and to extend federal firearms-related restrictions to individuals convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors against dating partner. However, much more needs to be done.  The Congressman is a cosponsor the Assault Weapons Ban Act which prohibits the sale, transfer, production, and importation of: semi-automatic rifles and pistols with a military-style features that are designed to kill large numbers of people. Similarly, he cosponsor the Automatic Gunfire Prevention Act , which prohibits the sale of bump stocks, which modify semi-automatic rifles so that they replicate the rate of fire of a fully automatic weapon.  

The Congressman is also a cosponsor of the Raise the Age Act to prohibit the licensing, selling or delivering certain semiautomatic weapons to persons under 21 years of age. The bill allows for exceptions for individuals who are members of the Armed Forces on active duty, or a full-time government employee whose official duties requires the carrying of a firearm. 

Congressman Cohen is also a cosponsor of the Gun Show Loophole Closing Act to require operators of gun shows to undergo a background check to ensure that they are at least 21 years old, not prohibited from transporting or shipping guns, have registered as a gun show operator, have not lied as a part of the registration process or concealed information from the registry, and have verified the identity of every vendor who will be participating an upcoming gun show. He is a cosponsor of the Background Check Completion Act to close the loophole that allowed the shooter in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina to obtain a gun. The Brady Act mandates criminal background checks for all gun sales at licensed firearm dealers through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). While the vast majority of checks are processed within minutes, if NICS has not completed its background check after three days, the dealer is currently allowed to proceed with the sale. The bill stops the sales of firearms until the background check is completed.