Sponsors (6)
The bill gives DOJ a paid-rewards tool to encourage reporting of bounty offers and help remove violent actors—potentially improving prosecutions and officer safety—but raises risks of extra taxpayer costs, incentivized false tips, and limited effectiveness for overseas conduct.
People in local communities and law enforcement: DOJ can pay rewards for information that leads to arrests or convictions of those offering bounties, helping remove violent actors and improve public safety.
Department of Justice and federal investigators: the bill creates an explicit investigative tool to incentivize cooperation from witnesses or insiders, potentially increasing successful prosecutions.
Federal law enforcement officers: by encouraging reporting of bounty offers, the program may reduce targeted threats against officers and help prevent attacks.
Individuals accused and law enforcement: reliance on paid informants may produce false or misleading tips motivated by reward money, imposing investigative costs and risking harm to innocent people.
Taxpayers: DOJ-paid monetary rewards could create additional federal expenditures without clear offsets or explicit appropriation authority, increasing fiscal burden on taxpayers.
Law enforcement and DOJ: rewards for conduct that occurs abroad may have limited practical effect because cross-border arrests and convictions can be difficult to achieve.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes the Attorney General to pay rewards to people who provide information about offers of bounties or other payments to kill or harm U.S. law enforcement officers. Rewards may be paid when information leads to an arrest or conviction (in any country), to the arrest or conviction of conspirators or attempted perpetrators, or to the prevention or frustration of such a plot. The bill also makes a clerical update to the chapter table in title 18.
Introduced December 11, 2025 by Richard Lynn Scott · Last progress December 11, 2025