H.R. 1240 — National Statistics on Deadly Force Transparency Act of 2025

This section establishes the short title of the Act as the “National Statistics on Deadly Force Transparency Act of 2025.”

This section directs the Attorney General to issue regulations within 6 months after enactment, in consultation with Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies and community, professional, research, and civil rights organizations, to collect and compile data on all instances in which deadly force is used by Federal, State, or local law enforcement officers. The regulations must require law enforcement agencies to collect identifying information about the person targeted and the officer involved, including race or ethnicity, gender, approximate age, and actual or perceived religious affiliation; the date, time, and location of the incident; the alleged criminal activity; the nature of the deadly force used, including firearm use; any explanation from the agency for the use of deadly force; any use-of-force guidelines in effect at the time; and any nonlethal efforts used before deadly force was applied. The regulations also must exclude personally identifiable information described in section 4, provide a standardized submission form for reporting to the Department of Justice, require submission to the Bureau of Justice Statistics and any other DOJ component the Attorney General determines appropriate, and require agencies to retain all collected data for not less than 4 years.

This section directs the Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics to provide Congress and make publicly available the data collected under this Act, excluding any personally identifiable information described in section 4.

This section limits public disclosure of personally identifying information collected under the Act by prohibiting the release of the name or identifying information of a law enforcement officer, a person who was the target of the use of deadly force, or any other individual involved in an incident for which data is collected and compiled. It also bars disclosure of that information to any person, except for disclosures necessary to comply with the Act, disclosures of information about a particular person to that person, and disclosures pursuant to litigation. In addition, it exempts that information from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. § 552), except for disclosures of information about a particular person to that person.

This section reduces by 10 percent the amount of a Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne JAG) award that a State or unit of local government would otherwise receive in the following fiscal year if it substantially fails to comply with the reporting requirement under section 2 for a fiscal year. (Thus, a noncompliant grantee would receive 90 percent of its otherwise available grant amount in the next fiscal year.)