Presidential candidate Julián Castro says too many lives have been cut short by a broken police system. The former Housing Secretary hopes to fix that system in his newest policy proposal revealed Monday.
Castro’s ‘People First Policing Plan’ is a three-tier policy that addresses the use of excessive force among law enforcement officers. The former San Antonio mayor previewed his policy Saturday at theMoveOn ‘Big Ideas’ candidate forum in San Francisco.
Castro’s plan aims to hold police departments and police officers accountable for excessive force, and ultimately seeks to heal the divide between communities and police.
He proposes creating national standards and guidelines for police conduct and establishing a national database that tracks police officers who have a record of using excessive force against civilians. Castro also plans to incentivize state and local governments to use the database when hiring law enforcement personnel.
Castro’s Policing Plan follows hisImmigration andEducation proposals since launching his campaign in January. He is the only candidate so far to introduce a plan on excessive police force and believes it should be treated as a national crisis.
Lauren Terrazas can be reached at lauren@tpr.org and on Twitter @terrazas_lauren.
