Vast majority of police departments aren't complying on misconduct reporting, NJ says

New Jersey's police departments have reporting problems, a new report by the State Comptroller's Office found. After reviewing 100 randomly selected municipal departments, the study found that the large majority are not meeting proper requirements for reporting police misconduct.

In 2019, the Attorney General's Office implemented new directives for the way police departments must report misconduct, including a standardized internal affairs report form that is available to the public in 11 languages. As a result of these directives, the comptroller's office began the Police Accountability Project to study whether departments were properly following them. The results indicate that 80% are not.

Of the 100 departments examined, 80 did not provide the standardized form online in all the required languages. Sixty departments either did not have the form available online at all or did not use the standardized form, and 32 required a sworn statement or included added warnings about the potential consequences of false reporting, which violates the attorney general's policy that prohibits both.

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Additionally, 60 departments did not establish a system for submitting complaints online, which, though not required, was recommended by the Attorney General's Office.

"This lack of compliance has the potential to undermine at least one of the overarching goals of the Attorney General’s Policing Initiative — building and maintaining public trust in police — and may impede the efficacy of the internal police disciplinary process overall," the report said of its findings.

The 100 departments that were randomly selected span the state and include both bigger municipalities, like Elizabeth, and smaller ones, such as Newton.

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In the study, the comptroller's office provided three recommendations to amend the non-compliance. The first, a relatively simple step, is that all departments review what is publicly available online and ensure that they are compliant. The second is for all departments to conduct a review of compliance with the attorney general's Internal Affairs Policies and Procedures.

The third recommendation shifts the onus to other agencies, calling on the Attorney General's Office and county prosecutors to investigate departments that don't comply with the directives.

“The law requires police departments to make it easy to report police misconduct, not put up barriers,” acting State Comptroller Kevin Walsh said in a statement. “The website is, in effect, the front door. The public needs to be assured that the door is open to them if they want to file a complaint.”