“This legislation is an important step in the right direction and credit is due to the Black communities across Iowa who have been agitating for real reforms for years. Credit is also due to the thousands of Iowans who took to the streets to protest against police violence in Black communities.
“There’s still much more work to be done. We have an obligation to change the current system and support efforts in Black and Brown communities to develop and build community-controlled institutions and interventions that have been proven to improve public safety and health more successfully than oppressive, terrifying, ineffectual, and deadly modern policing.
“The statehouse needs to reduce the public safety budget, pass drug law reform that legalizes possession, change our sentencing laws more broadly, fund alternative-to-policing community services and programs, pass a ban on racial profiling and pretextual stops, pass a bill to ensure body camera footage is available to the public in police use-of-force events and not kept secret forever, and get SROs out of schools.
“It’s past time for robust reforms that fundamentally change the role of police in our society.”
