Healing Requires Transparency: Why Students Need Police Accountability

On a chilly day in February, Inara Perryman stood outside Northern Illinois University’s Holmes Student Center, scrolling through her phone when she saw the news: the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database — a federal tool designed to track police misconduct — had been dismantled.

“This feels like losing something we fought for,” says Perryman, a 22-year-old political science major and vice president of NIU’s Black Student Union. “How do we heal when the systems meant to protect us keep disappearing?”

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The database, known as NLEAD, was created by President Joe Biden in May 2022 as part of a sweeping executive order on policing reform. It compiled records of officer misconduct — disciplinary actions, resignations during investigations, civil judgments — aiming to prevent problematic officers from quietly moving between departments. But on January 20, President Donald Trump revoked it as part of his administration’s rapid undoing of recent reforms.

For Black students at NIU, the move feels like a step backward in the long struggle for student safety and police transparency — one that gained urgency after the 2020 murder of George Floyd.

A Tool for Accountability, Now Gone

Perryman remembers the marches, the protests, and discussions about racial justice in the wake of Floyd’s murder. The NLEAD was supposed to be part of the solution — a way to hold officers accountable and rebuild trust between law enforcement and communities of color.

Now, she worries about what its absence means.

“After 2020, we marched and educated people about these officers,” Perryman says. “Now [the database] is gone. It tells us our safety isn’t a priority.” 

She ties racial healing directly to transparency. “How can Black students feel safe calling the police if we don’t even know who’s showing up?”

Elijah Thomas, a 23-year-old senior studying criminal justice, spent months analyzing the NLEAD’s structure. He saw flaws — some departments were slow to report, and not all records were complete — but he also saw its potential.

“It wasn’t perfect, but it flagged patterns — repeat complaints, unresolved cases, officers who bounced from one department to another,” says Thomas, who plans to become a civil rights attorney.

The issue is personal for him. In 2019, his cousin was fatally shot by Chicago police.

“When officers with violent pasts stay hidden, it retraumatizes communities,” he says. “Healing requires breaking that cycle.”

The Problem of “Wandering Officers”

Researchers have long warned about the dangers of so-called “wandering officers” — law enforcement personnel who leave one department after misconduct allegations only to be hired elsewhere, often with their records scrubbed clean.

A 2021 study by Duke University law professor Ben Grunwald and University of Chicago law professor John Rappaport found that these officers are significantly more likely to face new misconduct allegations. And the consequences fall disproportionately on communities of color.

Black Americans, who make up about 13% of the U.S. population, account for 26% of police shooting victims and 36% of unarmed individuals killed by law enforcement, according to data from the National Institutes of Health and The Washington Post. Only 49% of Black Americans say they trust police, compared to 72% of white Americans.

For Amina Carter, a 20-year-old sophomore psychology major, the dismantling of the NLEAD isn’t just about policy — it’s about whose pain is taken seriously.

She helped draft a student petition urging its reinstatement after attending a campus protest last month near a mural honoring George Floyd.

“This isn’t just about data,” Carter says. “It’s about whose pain matters. Every rollback says, ‘Get over it.’ But you can’t heal wounds you keep reopening.”

Looking for Local Solutions

With federal action stalled, students like Thomas and Carter are turning their attention to local measures. They’re pushing for Illinois to require police departments to publicly share misconduct records — something a handful of states, like California and New York, already do.

“Policy isn’t just politics—it’s survival,” Carter said. “We’ll keep demanding a seat at the table.”

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