The National Law Enforcement Accountability Database (NLEAD) was a United States government database, maintained by the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of Law of the Unite ...

, which indexed official records of federal law enforcement officer misconduct, commendations, and awards. The database was accessible only to authorized users to help determine suitability and eligibility of candidates for law enforcement positions. NEAD was established under Executive Order 14074 by President

Joe Biden Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice p ...

on May 25, 2022, the second anniversary of the

murder of George Floyd On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black American man, was murdered in Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old White police officer. Floyd had been arrested after a store clerk reported that he made a purchase using a c ...

. It was part of a package of police reforms Biden enacted by executive order after Congress failed to pass the

George Floyd Justice in Policing Act The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021 was a policing reform bill drafted by Democrats in the United States Congress. The legislation was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on February 24, 2021. The legislation a ...

. The order also required all federal law enforcement agencies to contribute to the database, and required the Department's

Bureau of Justice Statistics The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, and the operation of c ...

(BJS) to release an annual report containing aggregated and anonymized data from the database to maintain transparency and accountability. President Trump rescinded Executive Order 14074 on January 20, 2025, with Executive Order 14148, deactivating the NLEAD and the reports generated from it.

References

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External links

Archived version of website
Law enforcement databases in the United States Police misconduct in the United States