In the wake of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police, Virginia lawmakers took action on reports that state policing regulators failed to strip the police certifications from dozens of officers with criminal convictions ranging from embezzlement to possession of child pornography and sexual assault.
The Legislature passed a bill in October 2020 requiring police departments to complete internal investigations even if officers resign during them, and to provide any records of misconduct to new prospective employers for officers; strengthening the requirements for agencies to send reports of misconduct to state regulators; expanding the offenses for which officers can be stripped of their certifications; and requiring a state board to write a statewide standard of conduct for policing.
“This will keep them from job jumping,” said state Sen. Mamie Locke, D-Hampton, one of the main sponsors.
Three years later, barely anything has changed. The statewide code of conduct draft has languished in the review stage for over a hundred days past its deadline. While the state Criminal Justice Services Board (CJSB) has increased the number of officers it decertifies, critics accuse the board of inconsistently applying its expanded abilities to decertify officers.
And now, the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS), which houses the CJSB, refuses to publicly release basic data about police employment — data which it previously released, spurring this new reform law in the first place.
At the same time, Gov. Glenn Youngkin has introduced programs to encourage officers to move departments or even across state lines to Virginia — the exact “job jumping” that Sen. Locke warned against.