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Give police the capacity to stop violence and every person an enforceable remedy when public authority violates the law. A badge grants authority and carries enforceable duties.
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AI-researched, unverifiedLast Reviewed
Jul 10, 2026
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What is failing, what we would change, and the conclusion we are willing to defend.
Police carry a public duty no substitute can fully perform: answer danger, investigate violence, find missing people, enforce lawful orders, and protect victims when private power overwhelms them. Officers need enough trained colleagues, reliable equipment, clinical and investigative partners, and leaders who will back lawful decisions made under pressure. A country that wants safe neighborhoods cannot treat competent policing as optional.
That authority must answer to law. In August 2025, the FBI could publish only limited national use-of-force characteristics because participating agencies covered 78 percent of the law- enforcement population, below the 80-percent threshold for incident totals. In January 2025, the Justice Department found a statewide pattern of excessive force by the Louisiana State Police. Neither fact proves every officer or department is abusive. Together they show why trust cannot rest on assertion, fragmented reporting, or discipline controlled only by the institution being examined.
The Innovation Party proposes:
A national use-of-force floor. Federally funded agencies must authorize force only when it is necessary and proportionate to a lawful objective, require de-escalation when objectively feasible, impose duties to intervene and render medical aid, tightly limit chokeholds and no- knock entries, and train officers with realistic scenarios at least annually.
Complete public reporting. Every covered agency must report force causing death, serious injury, weapon discharge, or a civilian complaint; deaths in custody; stops; searches; complaints; dispositions; and officer separations for sustained serious misconduct. Missing reports are visible. Federal grants depend on timely, validated submission after technical assistance and a cure period; small departments receive shared reporting infrastructure.
Independent serious-incident review. A separate state unit or special prosecutor should investigate deaths, life-threatening injuries, sexual assault, evidence tampering, and alleged retaliation by officers. The involved agency preserves the scene and provides evidence but does not control the final investigation.
A civil remedy that reaches responsible government. Replace qualified immunity for covered constitutional violations with a statutory claim against the employing government. The victim need not find an earlier case with nearly identical facts. Governments ordinarily indemnify officers who acted in good faith within duty. Intentional, knowing, or reckless violations can produce personal contribution, discipline, decertification, or criminal liability.
Competent capacity with accountable budgeting. Fund staffing to workload, modern training, supervision, detectives, evidence systems, victim services, violence interruption, 988 and mobile crisis teams, and civilian responders for calls that do not require armed authority. Publish response time, clearance, workload, force, complaint, retention, and community-trust measures together.
Officer due process and portable accountability. Give accused officers notice, evidence, counsel, a neutral decision-maker, and a timely appeal. Preserve sustained serious-misconduct records and make decertification portable so resignation cannot erase a finding. Limit access to substantiated records, log use, correct error, and protect victim and witness privacy.
This is not “back the blue” without limits or “defund” without an operating model. It is a public contract: lawful authority, real capacity, visible performance, independent judgment, and a remedy when the state breaks its own rules. A badge grants authority, not immunity. Accountability protects good officers from the misconduct they did not commit.
Turn frustration into useful pressure.
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