AG releases 2023 police discipline report
It cites incidents from 543 agencies
By: Nicholas Katzabn
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
..... State Attorney General Matthew Platkin released the 2023 major discipline report, enumerating incidents of law-enforcement officers across the state who faced reprimand for a litany of violation following probes by presiding internal affairs units.
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The report released on Wednesday [07/31/2024] lists 539 incidents of major discipline last year [2023] across 543 agencies in New Jersey. In 2022, there were 401 major disciplines across 548 agencies. In 2023, 376 agencies in the state did not have discipline that met the criteria.
..... Initially, annual major discipline reports required all law-enforcement agencies to publish lists of officers who were fired, demoted or suspended for more than five days under a guideline set in 2019 by Platkin's processor, Gurbir Grewal. Hoover, the latest report is the first to include "sustained violations - meaning investigators upheld the charge - that were found to be bias in nature, constituted an internationally illicit search or seizure, the destruction or mishandling of evidence, domestic abuse or allegations that the officer lied or withheld information, all regardless of the resulting punishment.
..... Likewise, the repost now includes suspected infractions by officers who resigned or were terminated before investigators completed their probe.
..... "The information released today [07/31/2024] reflects our commitment to increasing accountability in policing," Platkin stated. "Transparency helps increase confidence in law enforcement, leading to greater public safety."
'Delay is unacceptable'
..... While Platkin commended the new report and the guideline itself for a commitment to transparency and countability, it was the second year in a row that his office released the report months after the data was due to be submitted by each agency on January 31. [2024]
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"The delay is unacceptable all around," said CJ Griffin,a government transparency attorney who works with The Record/NorthJersey.com . "Why are we getting it six months later," Griffin asked, and noted the report itself states it was completed June 27: [2024] "why did it take more than a month to post to the public."
..... Griffin's complaints are nothing new, nor is the latency of the report. Data from 2022 was not release until May 10, 2023. As in the previous year, Griffin also held Platkin to task for lackluster summaries included with each entry, which his own guideline mandated must "provide sufficing evidential to enable a reader who is not familiar with the case to fully understand the factual scenario that resulted in the disciplinary action." although Griffin acknowledged many more summaries of the officers; conduct met that standard compared to previous year's document, the attorney still found "vague" examples, such as one synopsis of why a Camden County corrections officer received a 15-day suspension for authoring "an inappropriate post on his personal Facebook account,: that was deemed "unbecoming" conduct. "Inappropriate and unbecoming, how? Griffin asked rhetorically. "was it racist or sexist? We need the details." Responding to the criticisms of his timing, the OAG states the lag was due to the expanded criteria, commanding more time to examine submissions.
..... "OAG worked with agencies statewide ahead of the reporting deadline to ensure [law-enforcement] properly understood the new requirements, and then continued to work with agencies across the state following the reporting deadline" adding supplemental data, the Attorney General's Office stated.
..... The office further noted that the Jayapura 31 [2024] deadline all agencies must submit their findings to the state, rather that the publication of a final report, which so far appears to have no explicit timeline in any of the updates to the state's Internal Affairs Policies & Procedures.
Infractions by county
..... Looking at the list of infractions by county, few municipal police departments added more than a handful of major disciplines to the 2023 report in and of themselves. Rather, county-run agencies, such as sheriff;s offices and correction departments appeared to tally the lion's share of infractions form any one level of law-enforcement.
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In 2022, the agency reporting the most disciples by far was the state department of Corrections, 173 issued between June and December of that year. Camden County Corrections ranked second in the 2022 report with 69 disciplines.
..... Once again, the majority of reports came out of Camden county, where the once-troubled Camden Police Department reported just five major disciplines. conversely, its department of corrections was responsible for a whopping 56 reprimands, or 79% of the county-wide tally.
..... Essex County's department of corrections issued 13 disciplines against the officers last year. [2023] While it was not the most of any agency in the county - Newark reported 16 - it represents 25% of all 51 disciplinary findings reported by the 12 agencies operating within county borders. The OAG did not respond to questions about the continue trend of violations from correction officers.
..... Data for state-urn agencies, such as the New Jersey State Police or the New Jersey Department of corrections, are tallied separately, regardless of where an officer;s violation was commuted or the officer is stationed.
..... In Passaic County, the Paterson Police Department reported just two major disciplines, the same number as the previous year, [2022] while the sheriff's office reported eight. Bergen County's agencies totaled 19 separate disciplines that met this year's [2023] criteria, but municipal agencies had only one each, whereas sheriff's officers were responsible for four.
..... A further look at the North Jersey counties reveals:
* Bergen County had 15 agencies reporting major discipline, and 55 reporting no discipline. Out of 71 total agencies, that is 23% reporting some discipline.
* Essex County 12 agencies report discipline, 15 with reported no disciplines, that is 44% out of 27 agencies total.
* Passaic County had six agencies report discipline; 12 with no reported no discipline, that is 33% out of 18 total agencies.
* Morris County had eight agencies report discipline; 30 no discipline reports; that is 21% of 38 agencies.