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Strengthening trust between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve.

Authorized federal users

Empowering federal hiring

In Executive Order 14074, Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety, the President recognized the importance of “mak[ing] policing safer and more effective by strengthening trust between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve.”

One of the many ways to advance that interest is to “commit to new practices in law enforcement recruitment, hiring, promotion, and retention, as well as training, oversight, and accountability.”

In furtherance of these goals and to promote new and strengthened practices in the hiring, promotion, and retention of law enforcement officers, the Executive Order directed the Attorney General to establish a National Law Enforcement Accountability Database for official records of federal law enforcement officer misconduct, commendations, and awards.

A Whole of Government Effort

The following Departments and Agencies are representative of the shared interagency commitment to enhance public trust and safety while increasing transparency and accountability through NLEAD. See the full list here.

U.S. Department of Agriculture logo

U.S. Department of Agriculture

U.S. Department of Commerce logo

U.S. Department of Commerce

U.S. Department of Defense logo

U.S. Department of Defense

U.S. Department of Energy logo

U.S. Department of Energy

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services logo

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

U.S. Department of Homeland Security logo

U.S. Department of Homeland Security

U.S. Department of the Interior logo

U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Department of Labor logo

U.S. Department of Labor

U.S. Department of Justice logo

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of State logo

U.S. Department of State

U.S. Department of Transportation logo

U.S. Department of Transportation

U.S. Department of the Treasury logo

U.S. Department of the Treasury

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs logo

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency logo

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

U.S. Postal Inspection Service logo

U.S. Postal Inspection Service

What is in the NLEAD?

As specified by the Executive Order, the NLEAD includes law enforcement officers who have records that include one of six categories related to officer misconduct.

The NLEAD will include data on commendations and awards when an officer is already in the NLEAD for one of the misconduct categories.

Who can access the NLEAD?

To protect the safety, privacy, and due process rights of law enforcement officers who may be identified, the NLEAD cannot be searched by the public. Access to the NLEAD is limited to authorized users from federal law enforcement agencies for use in the hiring, job assignment, and promotion of law enforcement officers.

In the future, NLEAD aims to offer data access to state and local agencies to support hiring and workforce practices.

How can I learn more?

To promote transparency, and as required by the Executive Order, DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics will publish an annual public report with aggregated and anonymized information on NLEAD data.

This report will be available to the public to understand how federal law enforcement agencies use the database to provide information that will improve the quality of the federal law enforcement workforce.

NLEAD Operations

The National Law Enforcement Accountability Database launched on December 18, 2023, and currently includes records for current and former federal officers who have misconduct information over the past seven years.

State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial Law Enforcement Agency Collaboration

To support law enforcement officer accountability efforts at the state and local level, the Department has awarded funding to the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training (IADLEST) to expand its National Decertification Index (NDI). The NDI is a national registry of law enforcement de-certification and revocation actions relating to officer misconduct that is currently used by all 50 states and D.C., and the expansion will include the additional categories of information set forth in the Executive Order. IADLEST entered into an agreement with a technology vendor to launch an updated NDI by May 2025, with funding provided by the Department.

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