STAND. COM. REP. NO. 376

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 742

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2021

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 742 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO POLICING,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to require each county police department to collect certain data regarding police stops, uses of force, and arrests, and submit annual reports to the Legislature.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Office of the Public Defender, Civil Beat Law Center for the Public Interest, American Civil Liberties Union of Hawai‘i, Society of Professional Journalists Hawaii Chapter, Young Progressives Demanding Action, Community Alliance on Prisons, and four individuals. Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Hawai‘i Police Department.

Your Committee finds that, in 2016, the Washington D.C. Council unanimously passed the Neighborhood Engagement Achieve Results (NEAR) Act, which provides a comprehensive framework to promote public safety and reduce crime. Recognizing that a number of issues in communities have been criminalized, thus leading to high rates of incarceration and the breakdown of those communities, the NEAR Act consists of several tools and public safety initiatives designed to reduce violent crime, reform criminal justice provisions, and improve community-police relations. One of these tools is a requirement that the D.C. Metro Police Department collect data on felony crimes, stops and frisks, and use of force incidents in an effort to build transparency, increase community trust, and improve internal accountability and data analysis. This measure will require each county police department to collect certain data regarding police stops, uses of force, and arrests, to better determine conditions for situations of interest, such as trends in the use of force; safeguard law enforcement officers from injury; and thereby allow greater overall academic analysis of policing in the State.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 742 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to your Committee on Judiciary.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs,

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CLARENCE K. NISHIHARA, Chair