Alabama
The Alabama Peace Officers’ Standards and Training Commission (APOSTC) certifies officers, must revoke certification on a felony conviction, and may revoke it on other grounds. Since 2023 the State has made it a felony to serve as an officer while revoked or to hire such a person, added English fluency and a continuing driver-license duty to the certification rules, and in 2025 rewrote the use-of-force justification statute and officer civil immunity. A legislative study commission on those 2025 protections was established on October 1, 2026.
- Sources checked
- Part of
- Officer Ledger
At a glance
- Certifying body
- Alabama Peace Officers’ Standards and Training Commission (APOSTC). It sets selection and training standards and certifies officers. It has the power to revoke certification for failure to meet continuing-education requirements or the 36-21-46 standards, and “shall” revoke it on a felony conviction (Code of Ala. 36-21-45(7), 36-21-52). It must maintain a Law Enforcement Officer Employment Database (36-21-55.1). The statutory deadline for the database was October 1, 2023; its launch could not be confirmed from official sources.
- Statute
- Code of Ala. 36-21-40 to 36-21-52 (APOSTC, standards, revocation); 36-21-55 to 36-21-55.5 (employment database, pre-hire checks, use-of-force complaint data); 36-21-51.1 (sensory-needs training); 36-21-210 to 36-21-214 (body and dash camera recordings); 13A-3-27 (use of force by law enforcement officers); 6-5-338.1 to 6-5-338.4 (officer civil immunity, replacing repealed 6-5-338); 13A-10-11 (impersonating a peace officer, including serving while revoked); 41-13-7.1 (redaction of officer personal information). Rules: Ala. Admin. Code ch. 650-X.
- Minimum standards
- Applicants must be at least 19, high school graduates or GED holders, certified physically fit, and of good moral character, and must complete APOSTC training; a provisional appointment lasts 6 months. A felony conviction bars certification (36-21-46). By long-standing rule, applicants must be U.S. citizens and pass a psychological evaluation. Since 2025 they must also be fluent in English and “have and maintain” a valid driver license (emergency rule effective March 18, 2025; permanent rule effective August 14, 2025). Before hiring, agencies “shall” run a fingerprint-based state and national background check and review the employment database, residence history, social media, references, school discipline, and credit history (36-21-55.3).
- Decertification
- Mandatory: APOSTC “shall” revoke certification on a felony conviction. The officer may ask for a hearing, but the only issue is whether a felony conviction exists, and certification is restored if the conviction is reversed (36-21-52). Discretionary: APOSTC has the power to revoke for failing continuing-education requirements or the 36-21-46 standards (36-21-45(7)). By rule, certification is revoked when an officer agrees in a court-approved plea or settlement to give it up, and it may be suspended or revoked for false statements to APOSTC or wilful rule violations (650-X-2-.05, 650-X-6-.02). Since October 1, 2025, knowingly serving as a peace officer while revoked, suspended, or ineligible, or knowingly hiring such a person, is a Class C felony (13A-10-11).
- Public decertification list
- None found. Employment database contents may be disclosed only for official law enforcement purposes or by court order, never under the Open Records Act, and knowing unauthorized disclosure is a Class A misdemeanor (36-21-55.1(c)). No revocation list was found on the APOSTC website.
- National Decertification Index
- None found. Neither the statutes nor ch. 650-X (Aug. 2025 compilation) names the Index. 36-21-55.1(a)(3) requires only that the state database be compatible with any federal database set up by the U.S. Attorney General or as federal law directs.
- Continuing training
- By rule, certified officers must complete 12 hours of APOSTC-approved continuing education each year (650-X-12-.02); for deputy sheriffs this applies only if the county commission adopts a resolution requiring it, and reserve and auxiliary officers are not exempt. Annual firearms requalification is required by rule (650-X-12-.03). Municipal police chiefs must complete 20 hours of executive-level continuing education a year (36-21-51(a)). Since January 1, 2024, every certified officer must also complete 1 hour every other year on interacting with people with sensory needs or invisible disabilities (36-21-51.1).
Changes, 2023 to 2026
Legislative study commission on the 2025 officer protections
The Joint Legislative Study Commission on Law Enforcement Legal Protections is established effective October 1, 2026. Its members are the chairs of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, the Senate Veterans, Military Affairs, and Public Safety Committee, and the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee, plus the House and Senate Minority Leaders. It must first meet by November 1, 2026. It may study how courts apply the act, its effect on recruitment, retention, training, civil defense costs, and crime, and whether to require agencies to adopt a model or uniform written policy as defined in 6-5-338.1. It must give its recommendations by the 10th legislative day of the 2027 Regular Session and then dissolves.
For officers: No new duty for officers. The commission may recommend changes to the 2025 immunity law.
No state fee for APOSTC background checks; ALEA may set up a rap back program
The act creates the Alabama Background Check Service within ALEA. Background-check requests by APOSTC or by any criminal justice agency are exempt from the new fees when made for criminal justice purposes or for an employment suitability decision. ALEA “may establish” an Alabama Rap Back Program; if it does, ALEA “shall participate” in the FBI’s Next Generation Identification Rap Back Service, which notifies enrolled entities when a fingerprinted person is arrested or convicted. The act does not change certification standards.
For officers: No new duty for officers.
New use-of-force justification standard, with pretrial criminal immunity
Former 13A-3-27 justified the force a peace officer “reasonably believes to be necessary” to make an arrest, and deadly force for felony arrests or to defend against deadly force. It also said that justification did not cover reckless or criminally negligent conduct toward arrestees or innocent bystanders. The act struck that text. A “law enforcement officer,” now defined to include detention facility officers, is justified in “any use of physical force” that is within the officer’s discretionary authority and does not violate the person’s state or federal constitutional right to be free from excessive force. A person who uses justified force “is immune from criminal prosecution” unless the force is found unlawful. The defendant may seek a pretrial hearing and must prove immunity by a preponderance of the evidence; a denial may be reviewed by mandamus. An agency may not arrest a person for the force unless it finds probable cause that the force was unlawful.
For officers: Force within your discretionary authority is justified unless it is constitutionally excessive; to claim immunity before trial, you must prove it by a preponderance of the evidence.
Officer civil immunity recodified and expanded: narrower exceptions, particularity pleading, automatic discovery stay
Repealed 6-5-338 already gave peace officers immunity from tort liability for conduct in the line of duty and required certain private employers of off-duty officers to carry liability coverage. The new sections restate and restructure that law. An officer is immune from civil liability for conduct within discretionary authority unless the officer acted “recklessly without law enforcement justification,” which includes harming the plaintiff by failing, in an objectively unreasonable manner, to follow the employer’s written policy, or violated a clearly established state right. A complaint must plead each element with particularity. A motion to dismiss or a mandamus petition automatically stays discovery, with exceptions that include the governing written policy and recordings the agency has decided to disclose under 36-21-213(a); recordings may be produced only under a protective order. The covered “law enforcement officer” includes tactical medics, detention facility officers, and public safety dispatchers, and excludes constables. Private employers of off-duty officers must carry at least $500,000 of liability insurance, up from $100,000 under repealed 6-5-338(c).
For officers: A lawsuit against you must plead its claims in detail, and discovery is paused while you seek dismissal on immunity grounds.
Agencies must report use-of-force complaint data to APOSTC
Every state, county, and municipal law enforcement agency “shall collect,” for each use-of-force complaint, the type of force alleged and the race or ethnicity of the officer and of the person subjected to it. Agencies report at least once a year to APOSTC. APOSTC removes identifying information and reports to the Legislature by the first legislative day of each session; the report may be aggregated.
For officers: Complaints alleging excessive force against you are reported to APOSTC with your race or ethnicity, and published only without identifying information.
Felony to serve as an officer while revoked or ineligible, or to hire such a person
Impersonating a peace officer, a Class C felony, now also covers a person who takes employment or appointment as a peace officer knowing that he or she is ineligible under state law, or that his or her APOSTC certification is revoked or suspended. It also covers a person who employs, appoints, or “otherwise facilitates” the service of someone known to be barred on those grounds.
For officers: Working as an officer while your certification is revoked or suspended is a felony, and so is knowingly hiring someone in that position.
Probation and parole officers brought within the APOSTC definitions
The APOSTC article now lists the Board of Pardons and Paroles as a “law enforcement agency” and its enforcement officers as “law enforcement officers,” alongside ALEA and the Department of Corrections.
For officers: Probation and parole officers fall within the APOSTC article’s definitions.
Certification rules add English fluency and a continuing driver-license duty
Rule 650-X-2-.06 already required U.S. citizenship. It now also requires applicants to be “fluent in the English language so that he/she is able to speak, read, write, understand, and comprehend” it. Rule 650-X-2-.08 now requires applicants to “have and maintain” a valid driver license. Both changes first took effect by emergency rule on March 18, 2025, lapsed when it expired on July 16, 2025, and returned in the permanent rule on August 14, 2025. The emergency rule also changed 650-X-2-.03 (education); that change was not made permanent. Rule 650-X-2-.05 also contains newer text on pretrial diversion, youthful-offender adjudications, and protection-from-abuse orders, but it cannot be dated to 2025 from the published compilations.
For officers: You must be fluent in English and keep a valid driver license, not only hold one when you apply.
Cade Noah Act: training every other year on sensory needs and invisible disabilities
APOSTC “shall require” every certified officer to complete 1 hour of training every other year on interacting with people with sensory needs or invisible disabilities. This is in addition to the continuing education required by 36-21-51. A nonprofit provides the training free, in person or online. APOSTC checks compliance as it does for other continuing education and “may” adopt rules.
For officers: Complete 1 hour of sensory-needs training every 2 years, on top of your annual continuing education.
Officers may have personal identifying information redacted from public documents
When a state legislator or a covered law enforcement officer or employee asks, a state, county, or municipal agency “shall redact” that person’s personal identifying information from any document before disclosing it, and must offer a request form. Covered people include judges, prosecutors and their investigators, sheriffs, deputies, jailers, equivalent federal officers, and APOSTC-certified officers who are “not pending decertification.”
For officers: You can ask agencies to redact your personal identifying information, unless you are pending decertification.
Body and dash camera recordings: viewing only, and not personnel records
Body-worn and dashboard camera recordings “are not personnel records” of officers. An agency may disclose a recording only to a person whose image or voice it captures, or to that person’s personal representative; the representative of a competent adult needs that adult’s consent. Disclosure means viewing at a time and place the agency chooses, not a copy, and the viewer may not record or copy it. Requests must be in writing. The agency shows only the relevant portions, may refuse if disclosure would affect an active investigation or prosecution, and may charge a reasonable redaction fee. Civil subpoenas under Ala. R. Civ. P. 45 are not limited.
For officers: Recordings of you are not part of your personnel record, and the public has no right to copies.
Not yet in force and pending
No enacted change in this area awaits its effective date. These 2026 Regular Session bills died when the session adjourned: HB 461 and SB 302 (APOSTC certification for Marion Military Institute graduates), SB 48 (ban on four-point restraint), SB 120 (vehicular-pursuit policy standard), SB 157 (body and dash camera footage as public records), and HB 621 (agency reporting to the Alabama Justice Information Commission). No 2026 bill on officer masks or identification, or on decertification, was found.
The 2025 Alabama Administrative Monthly notice for the permanent 650-X-2 amendment could not be retrieved; this page relies on the APOSTC rule compilations.
Checked and unchanged
- Code of Ala. 36-21-46 (applicant standards), 36-21-52 (felony revocation), and 36-21-55 to 36-21-55.4 (employment database and pre-hire checks, created by Act 2021-268): no 2023–2026 amendment.
- Ala. Admin. Code 650-X-6-.02 (revocation) and 650-X-12 (continuing education): no 2023–2026 amendment in the history notes. Rule 650-X-2-.01 was not amended in 2025.
- Act 2023-361 (effective September 1, 2023) widened “peace officer” in 13A-10-11 to include federal officers. Act 2024-216 amended 36-21-49 on mutual-aid agreements. Neither changes certification or decertification.
- Not counted: Act 2023-369 (doxing, including publishing an officer’s personal identifying information to harass); Act 2024-278 (general public-records request procedures); Act 2026-493 (a self-defense presumption about defendants who hide a weapon).
Last updated October 19, 2026Source: United States Council for Law & InvestigationCite as: United States Council for Law & Investigation, “Alabama officer certification: Officer Ledger,” uscli.org/officer-certification-tracker/alabama (last updated October 19, 2026). Text licensed CC BY 4.0.