District 78 State Representative Jarad Klein (R) of Keota says he hopes the “Back the Blue” bill going through the Iowa legislature gives people in law enforcement a morale boost.

Public Safety Committee Chair Klein says the proposed legislation calls for tougher penalties on those who harm law enforcement or cause chaos in their community. He says in the bill’s formative stages, he asked various law enforcement agencies what they needed from lawmakers, “What can we do to address recruitment, retention, we want to make sure we have good officers and that we’re treating them well so we can keep them around. Right now, the morale of law enforcement is extremely low, many people are very abusive (towards officers), so it’s hard for us to recruit and retain those folks, so what do we do?”

Klein says “Back the Blue” also calls for address confidentiality for law enforcement, prosecutors, federal judges, and other judicial officers so that their personal information including home addresses aren’t accessible to criminals looking to retaliate against those officials. This legislation doesn’t include a ban on racial profiling from law enforcement, which was proposed by Governor Kim Reynolds.