YourVoice.Now
Back to Dashboard
S-1563Senate2025-05-20Crime and Law Enforcement

Retired Law Enforcement Officers Continuing Service Act

YourVoice.Now Summary

Transparency & Accountability

Funds departments to rehire retired officers for civilian police work — footage review, forensics — with no arrest powers.

Transparency & Accountability

  • Oversight powers — Justice Department Inspector General must audit grant recipients each year
  • Reporting requirements — Attorney General must certify audits and exclusions to Congress annually
  • Hiring screening — Agencies must check applicants' disciplinary records before hiring with grant funds

The details

Police departments often lack staff for time-consuming tasks like reviewing camera footage, forensic analysis, and financial-crime investigations. This bill would create a Justice Department grant program to hire retired law enforcement officers for these civilian jobs. The retirees could not make arrests or use force. Agencies would have to check applicants' disciplinary records before hiring, using a national decertification database or prior employers' files. The program includes yearly inspector-general audits, and agencies with unresolved audit problems would be barred from funding for two years.

Congressional Summary

Retired Law Enforcement Officers Continuing Service ActThis bill authorizes the Department of Justice to award grants for state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement agencies to hire retired law enforcement personnel to perform civilian law enforcement tasks on behalf of the agency and to train civilian employees in the performance of such tasks.Under the bill, the term civilian law enforcement task includes assisting with certain investigations, reviewing camera footage, conducting crime scene analysis, and conducting forensic analysis.

Legislative Subjects

Accounting and auditingCongressional oversightEmployee hiringGovernment employee pay, benefits, personnel managementLaw enforcement administration and funding

Details

Congress
119th
Chamber
Senate
Status
summarized
Action
Reported to Senate
Action Date
2025-05-20
Date Added
2026-07-22
Source
Congress.gov →

Like reading a bill in plain English?

We're building an app that does this for every bill in Congress and lets you tell your reps how you want them to vote. We're a small team getting ready to launch, and we're trying to show investors that real people want this. Be one of them. Help us get it built. Leave your email and we'll tell you the moment the app is ready.

By default, we'll only email you once — when the app launches. Unless you opt in below, you won't receive anything else. We don't share or sell your email.