The White House, May 25, 2022 – “By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby order as follows: Section 1. Policy. Our criminal justice system must respect the dignity and rights of all persons and adhere to our fundamental obligation to ensure fair and impartial justice for all. This is imperative — not only to live up to our principles as a Nation, but also to build secure, safe, and healthy communities. Protecting public safety requires close partnerships between law enforcement and the communities it serves. Public safety therefore depends on public trust, and public trust in turn requires that our criminal justice system as a whole embodies fair and equal treatment, transparency, and accountability. Law enforcement officers are often a person’s first point of contact with our criminal justice system, and we depend on them to uphold these principles while doing the demanding and often life-threatening work of keeping us safe. We expect them to help prevent and solve crimes and frequently call upon them to respond to social problems outside their expertise and beyond their intended role, diverting attention from their critical public safety mission and increasing the risks of an already dangerous job — which has led to the deaths of law enforcement officers and civilians alike. The vast majority of law enforcement officers do these difficult jobs with honor and integrity, and they work diligently to uphold the law and preserve the public’s trust. Yet, there are places in America today, particularly in Black and Brown communities and other communities of color, where the bonds of trust are frayed or broken. We have collectively mourned following law enforcement encounters that have tragically ended in the loss of life. To heal as a Nation, we must acknowledge that those fatal encounters have disparately impacted Black and Brown people and other people of color. The pain of the families of those who have been killed is magnified when expectations for accountability go unmet, and the echoes of their losses reverberate across generations. More broadly, numerous aspects of our criminal justice system are still shaped by race or ethnicity. It is time that we acknowledge the legacy of systemic racism in our criminal justice system and work together to eliminate the racial disparities that endure to this day. Doing so serves all Americans. Through this order, my Administration is taking a critical step in what must be part of a larger effort to strengthen our democracy and advance the principles of equality and dignity. While we can make policing safer and more effective by strengthening trust between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve, we must also reform our broader criminal justice system so that it protects and serves all people equally. To be clear, certain obstacles to lasting reform require legislative solutions. In particular, system-wide change requires funding and support that only the Congress can authorize. But my Administration will use its full authority to take action, including through the implementation of this order, to build and sustain fairness and accountability throughout the criminal justice system…”