Sponsored by:
Assemblywoman SHAVONDA E. SUMTER
District 35 (Bergen and Passaic)
Assemblywoman VERLINA REYNOLDS-JACKSON
District 15 (Hunterdon and Mercer)
Assemblywoman ANGELA V. MCKNIGHT
District 31 (Hudson)
Co-Sponsored by:
Assemblyman Johnson, Assemblywomen Vainieri Huttle, Jasey, Assemblymen Wimberly and Conaway
SYNOPSIS
Requires AG to establish law enforcement officer use of force data collection and reporting system.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act establishing a law enforcement officer use of force data collection and reporting system and supplementing chapter 17B of Title 52 of the Revised Statutes.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. a. For the purposes of this section:
"Law enforcement agency" means a department, division, bureau, commission, board, or other authority of the State or of any political subdivision thereof which employs law enforcement officers.
“Law enforcement officer” means any person who is employed as a permanent full-time member of a law enforcement agency and is statutorily empowered to act as an officer for the detection, apprehension, arrest, and conviction of offenders against the laws of this State.
b. The Attorney General shall establish and implement an electronic data collection and reporting system for tracking every incident of use of force by a law enforcement officer appointed to any law enforcement agency in this State.
c. Every law enforcement agency in the State shall utilize a standardized reporting form prescribed by the Attorney General for recording data describing each incident of use of force by a law enforcement officer.
d. The data collection and reporting system shall include a secure portal through which law enforcement agencies can electronically submit use of force data to the system.
e. The data collection and reporting system shall be searchable by law enforcement agencies and members of the public.
f. The Attorney General shall develop guidelines to ensure accurate and secure transmission, storage, scrubbing, and analysis of the data in the data collection and reporting system required by this section.
2. This act shall take effect on the first day of the seventh month next following enactment, but the Attorney General may take any anticipatory action in advance of that date as may be necessary for the timely implementation of this act.
STATEMENT
This bill requires the Attorney General to establish and implement an electronic data collection and reporting system for tracking incidents of use of force by law enforcement officers in this State.
Law enforcement agencies are required by the bill to use a standard reporting form prescribed by the Attorney General to record data describing each incident of use of force by a law enforcement officer. The data on these forms is to be uploaded to the database through a secure portal.
The bill requires the data collection and reporting system to be searchable by law enforcement agencies and members of the public. The Attorney General is required to develop guidelines to ensure accurate and secure transmission, storage, scrubbing, and analysis of the data in the data collection and reporting system.
The Attorney General currently is operating a pilot “Police Use of Force Portal” program in six municipalities (Bridgeton, Dover, Linden, Millville, Paterson, and South Brunswick). The goal is to establish a Statewide, uniform database to aggregate data and compare information across agencies. Reportedly, the database was to be accessible to all law enforcement agencies by July 1, 2020 and be accessible to the public at a later date.