In a move to normalize relations between the city’s police force and its citizens, New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton announced Friday that the NYPD will begin documenting almost all instances of force during interactions with the public. The guidelines, which will come into effect in 2016, will require officers to intervene and report instances of excessive force or face disciplinary action. This includes instances of hand strikes, takedowns, baton blows or bites by a police dog. Hopefully, the systematic documentation of these more routine uses of force will reduce NYPD abuses, especially given that the force plans on releasing an annual report. With increased oversight and transparency, perhaps the NYPD can turn the corner on its violent past.

The reforms are meant, in part, to make statistics about police violence less opaque. With notable exceptions, most instances of police violence go undocumented. Bratton claimed that force was used in only 2 percent of arrests in 2014, but without a reporting system this number has no depth and no larger meaning. The proposed reporting system, meanwhile, would require officers to fill out a form for every violent confrontation. The form prompts officers for the race of the victim and asks them to justify why the violence was necessary. This should lead to fewer instances of racially-motivated policing. Not only would the paper trail allow better understanding of individual instances of violence, but also allow the public to quantify police misconduct and better combat the growing trend of police violence.

The path toward improving police conduct lies in holding officers accountable for their actions. Reporting violence is one step toward this. Another valuable step would be to implement body cameras, which have been frequently called for following high-profile police shootings in Ferguson, Missouri, Staten Island and Baltimore. However, Bratton’s reforms stopped short of implementing such a measure. In addition, police officers should be mandated to have audio devices on their person while on duty. This would create a robust system of transparency between the police force and the public. Consequences should be set in place in situations where the police fail to use body-cameras or audio devices. As part of his larger package of reforms, Bratton would do well to turn his attention to the issue of real-time recording as well.

Although the move to document police violence is a welcome one, more needs to be done on both the bureaucratic and enforcement level. It remains to be seen how accurately officers will fill out the forms, and how much these forms will cut down on the culture of chronic racism and excessive force that has come to define the NYPD over the last few years. However, if the initiatives Bratton describes save even one life, it will have been worth it.

A version of this article appeared in the Monday, October 5 print edition. Email the WSN Editorial Board at [email protected].