In what state officials have said is another step toward greater police transparency, the New Jersey attorney general has mandated departments must now publicly list which of their officers have participated in various types of misconduct, including discrimination, excessive force or domestic violence.
State Attorney General Matthew Platkin also said in the Tuesday announcement that departments must create a summary report that details the indiscretions for public release upon request. And he is requiring that departments include a certain amount of information in all their public disciplinary reports, which some agencies have undercut by offering sparse details that shed no light on the incidents that landed the officers on the lists in the first place.
“Trust between law enforcement and the community is the most important thing we have,” Platkin said in an interview. “The overwhelming majority of law enforcement officers throughout the state are doing an incredible job. But there are some that have committed acts that undermine that trust. When we let the public know that, we show that we don’t have something to hide … And that when something goes wrong, the public has a right to know about it.”
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The move comes after a March decision by the state Supreme Court that declared some police internal affairs records could be released to the public. And it appears to inch New Jersey closer to the increased transparency that citizens, activists and advocates demanded in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man killed by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020.
Platkin said the new directive builds off the state’s decision in the wake of Floyd’s death to require departments to release annual reports detailing which officers have been punished for major misconduct, including any discipline that led to a firing, demotion or suspension of more than a week.
Starting in January 2023, departments must also include any sustained complaint — regardless of how much punishment was meted out — that accused an officer of discrimination or bias; excessive force; lying; filing a false report or certification; conducting an improper search, seizure or arrest; destroying evidence; or domestic violence.
“We thought there were certain categories of conduct that really go to the heart of that relationship between law enforcement and the community,” Platkin said. “And we felt the public had a right to know about it.”
But not all transparency advocates are cheering the attorney general’s announement.
CJ Griffin, a Hackensack attorney who has represented NorthJersey.com and The Record in public records lawsuits, said Platkin’s directive effectively guts the state Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in March that said some internal affairs files could be released in their entirety.
New Jersey has historically shielded such records from public view.
But the court’s decision, which stemmed from a lawsuit over an Elizabeth police director who resigned after an investigation found he referred to employees using racist and sexist language, cracked open the door and allowed the public to finally see certain redacted internal affairs files, Griffin said.
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That will likely change now that Platkin says departments must create two separate reports — an investigation report and a summary written with the intention that the public will see it, she said.
“We know from prior major discipline disclosures that what they report isn’t full, fair and accurate,” Griffin said. “We’re not going to get the meat and potatoes of those reports any more, which is highly problematic. The reason we have public records laws is so you can get the actual, raw public record. Not a summary of a public record.”
When asked about Griffin’s concerns, Platkin said police will be able to release the summary reports much more quickly because they won’t need to review and redact it.
“We wanted to have a report on the front end that’s written with the expectation that this could be produced to the public if requested,” Platkin said. “If you wait until the request comes in, you have to go back and redact all the information. It’s not to hide the ball; It’s so we can more quickly produce this information.”
Griffin dismissed this as a typical “anti-transparency governmental response.”
“Plenty of agencies have been producing the internal affairs reports, and often all that needs to be redacted is a few names,” Griffin said. “We, as a result of this decision, are going to get less information. It’s going to be this sanitized version of transparency … They actually walked back what the Supreme Court gave us.”
