“…Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch announced several steps by the Department of Justice to enable the nationwide collection of data on law enforcement interactions with civilians, including data related to the use of force by law enforcement officers. “Accurate and comprehensive data on the use of force by law enforcement is essential to an informed and productive discussion about community-police relations,” said Attorney General Lynch.  “The initiatives we are announcing today are vital efforts toward increasing transparency and building trust between law enforcement and the communities we serve.  In the days ahead, the Department of Justice will continue to work alongside our local, state, tribal and federal partners to ensure that we put in place a system to collect data that is comprehensive, useful and responsive to the needs of the communities we serve.”  The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing called on law enforcement to “collect, maintain and report data…on all officer involved shootings, whether fatal or nonfatal, as well as any in-custody death,” and the department is committed to heeding this call.  In 2014, Congress passed the Death in Custody Reporting Act (DCRA), which required states and federal law enforcement agencies to submit data to the department about civilians who died during interactions with law enforcement or in their custody (whether resulting from use or force or some other manner of death, such as suicide or natural causes) and authorized the Attorney General to impose a financial penalty on non-compliant states.  However, Congress did not impose a similar reporting requirement for ­non-lethal­ uses of force by law enforcement.  In the absence of a statutory mandate, and in an effort to close this gap, the department is partnering with local, state, tribal and federal law enforcement to provide a means for national data collection.  In 2015, and in collaboration with local, state, tribal and federal law enforcement the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began work on a “National Use of Force Data Collection,” an online portal to collect use-of-force data from law enforcement agencies across the country.”