SENATE LAW AND PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE

 

STATEMENT TO

 

ASSEMBLY, No. 3641

 

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

 

DATED:  JULY 28, 2020

 

      The Senate Law and Public Safety Committee reports favorably Assembly Bill No. 3641.

      As reported by the committee, this bill requires State, county, municipal, and campus law enforcement agencies to provide in-service training for implicit bias.

      The implicit bias training required by the bill is to include instruction on understanding implicit bias and how to employ strategies to eliminate unconscious biases that shape behavior and produce disparate treatment of individuals based on their race, ethnicity, religious belief, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, or other characteristics.

      Current law requires the Department of Law and Public Safety to develop or identify uniform cultural diversity training course materials which may be utilized by police departments.  This bill expands this law to also require the DLPS to include bias training in these training materials.  The bill further requires all law enforcement agencies to provide in-service cultural diversity and implicit bias training to their officers once every five years.

      As reported by the committee, Assembly Bill No. 3641 is identical to Senate Bill No. 2689, which also was reported by the committee on this same date.