The new laws expand accountability, but some activists don’t think they go far enough.
Maryland lawmakers passed a package of sweeping police reform bills which narrow the capacity of police to use force and expand accountability for their misconduct, in part by doing away with the state’s powerful and first-in-the-nation Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights passed in 1974. Maryland’s Democratic-controlled legislature passed the bills over the objections and vetoes of Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, and the legislative package is being hailed by Democratic lawmakers and police reform advocates as a significant step toward a more progressive criminal justice system in the state. “Last year, I attended and participated in multiple demonstrations of people demanding change — the young and the old, people of all races and walks of life,” Maryland Sen. Charles Sydnor, a Democrat who sponsored one of the measures, said, according to the Baltimore Sun. “With so many situations being thrust before our eyes, we could no longer deny what we see, and I thank my colleagues for believing their eyes and listening to the majority of Marylanders.” The new laws cover a wide range of policies and include restricting no-knock warrants, mandating body cameras, prohibiting police officers from preventing civilians from recording them, and banning sentences of life in prison without possibility of parole for juveniles. As the New York Times reports, there are also new guidelines designed to raise the bar for police use of force: One of the bills repeals the state’s police bill of rights passed in 1974 — the first of its kind in the country, which helped inspire similar laws in some 20 other states.
