Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, speaks during a debate in the Alabama House of Representatives on Feb. 11, 2025 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. She sponsors a bill that would require local law enforcement agencies to annually report how many sworn-in officers they’ve employed to the state. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
A bill that would require local law enforcement agencies to annually report how many sworn-in officers they’ve employed to the state passed the Alabama House unanimously on Tuesday.
Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, who sponsored HB 287, said it is the public’s right to know how many officers are protecting them. She said most of Alabama’s crime in 2024 happened in Montgomery and Birmingham.
“I got people dying,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “Sixty to seventy percent of the people that are dying in the city of Birmingham are in the district that I represent.”
Rep. Alan Treadaway, R-Birmingham, serves on a committee that looks into violent crime in the state. He said he tried to find out how many officers were in Montgomery and Birmingham by phone, letter and email for the committee but was not successful.
“Homicides in the city of Birmingham in the last decade were at 53. Now, we’ve reached 153,” Treadaway said. “When we were at 53, we had two times the number of officers we currently have.”
Treadaway spoke in support of the bill, emphasizing the importance of transparency.
“There is no reason for this to be secret,” he said. “There should be total transparency.”
The staffing numbers would be reported to the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency and the Attorney General’s Office.
Rep. Kenyatté Hassell expressed concern that the number of officers becoming public information would increase crime. Givan pushed back.
“The criminal already knows how many officers that are operating,” Givan said on the House floor Tuesday. “This is about the general public. The general public deserves a right to know that they do not have enough sworn officers in their community to police.”
The legislation was approved 86-0 with 14 abstentions after two amendments from the sponsor. The first amendment came at the request of ALEA to clarify who is responsible for generating the reports at each law enforcement agency and established a $1,000 fine for agencies that do not report within 30 days every 30 days until the report is filed.
The second amendment named the bill the Sergeant Wytasha Carter Truth and Transparency Act. Givan said Sgt. Carter died in the line of duty in 2021.
“He was killed in the line of duty after advising those in leadership that the operations they were trying to do that night, there was not enough law enforcement there,” she said. “They didn’t have enough, but he was directed to go on anyway to perform that duty.”
The bill goes to the Alabama Senate.