Governor Bill Lee announced the first steps to police reform in Tennessee at a press conference Thursday afternoon. The reform covered three primary issues.

The first was reforms to police use of force. Lee announced there would be reviews made to the Use of Force Policy as well as the Duty to Intervene policy. Lee added that he does not want to see choke holds used as a restraining technique. He also announced peer-to-peer accountability that encourages officers to intervene in any unlawful behavior including that of another officer.

Lee’s second reform came in the announcement of a new information sharing policy called the National Decertification Index that tracks officers who have lost their licenses due to misconduct. Agencies across Tennessee will now have access to that information in order to prevent officers from being hired by a department after being let go by another department for misconduct.

Finally, the Governor announced improvements in police training.

“We’re formalizing the training academy curriculum to add an additional 88 hours of training and study to boost the minimum requirement of 488 hours that currently exists for all officers,” announced Lee. “The curriculum will also be updated to include no fewer than 16 hours dedicated to de-escalation techniques.”

The governor made it clear that these reforms were the beginning of law enforcement reform and that his office was not finished working on the matter.